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„ * TH^', 

I - 

MISERIES OP^iMARRIAGE 

THE FAIR OF HAY FAIR. 


BY THE AUTHOR OF 

** Mothers and Daughters,** **P{n Money,** &c. &c. 

^ CONTAINIlia 

THE SEPARATE MAINTENANCE, 

THE DIVORCEE, 

THE FLIRT OF TEN SEASONS, &c. &,c. 
-^0©- 

' . ‘IN TWO VOLUMES. 

VOL. I. 


PHILADELPHIA; 

E. L. CAREY & A. HART-CHESNUT STREET. 
BOSTON: 

ALLEN & TICKNOll. 





1834 . 


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SEPARATE maintenance. 


WUO.G.. h..hio>nod ^ 



CHAPTER I. • 


It 18 observed of over-cautious generals, that they never engage in bat’ 
tie without securing a retreat ; on the other hand, the greatest conquerors 
have burnt their ships or broke down the bridges behind them, determined 
to succeed or die in the engagement. In the same manner, I should very 
much suspect a woman who takes such precautions for her retreat, and con- 
trives methods to live happily without the affection of one to whom she 
joins herself for life.— Addison. 

It was a bright sunshiny day that beamed upon the 
solemnization of Henrietta Broughton’s wedding. Her 
life had been all sunshine! She was one of those hap- 
py beings which nature sometimes creates in her holi-r 
day moods; blest with good looks, good health, and a 
tolerably good understanding. 

But like the Fairy Princess, said to be endowed by 
an evil genius at her birth, with some malignant quality 
rendering negative all the good gifts previously bestowed, 
Henrietta was deprived by circumstances of the happy 
results to be anticipated from so rare a combination of 
merits. We are all aware, that in this world, (accordr 
ing to our terse English translation of the French pro^ 
verb, ‘^ Tout est heur ou 'nmlheur^'*) “ Luck’s all!” and 
it was Henrietta’s luck to lose her parents in her infant 
cy, and to be placed under the care and guardianship of 
her mother’s widowed sister; by whom all her faults 
were transformed into virtues, — her virtues suffered to 
dwindle into feeble enervation of mind. The prosperi- 
ties of life fanned the fair orphan with their golden 
wings from her very cradle: and with so incapable a 
momtress as Lady Mandeville to counteract their evil 
influence, it was only wonderful that as she advanced 
in life her mind grew no softer, her heart no harder. 
A disposition naturally generous and cordial counter* 


6 THE SEPARATE 

acted the indurative power of the great world — the pe- 
trifying spring whose showers incessantly besprinkle | 
the path of fashion ! . . I 

Nor did the propitious genius which presided over 
Miss Broughton’s destinies, desert her on the threshold 
of the gorgeous temple of pleasure into which, under 
the auspices of Lady Mandeville, she was initiated in all 
the inexperience of seventeen, — all the bewilderment 
of a novice accustomed from her childhood to the in- 
cense of weak partiality. It would be difficult, indeed, 
to ascertain in what year of her babyhood. Lady Man- 
deville first began to utter in her hearing the most ex- 
aggerated panegyrics of her wit and beauty, and the 
most sanguine predictions concerning her future esta- 
blishment in life. The nurses promised her she should 
be a duchess, that she might be persuaded to allow 
them to clasp on her red morocco shoesj — and there 
w as no surer bribe by which the young lady could be 
induced to study her alphabet and apostrophize that 
“busy bee” which Dr. Watts has rendered so edifying 
an insect to many a rising (or falling) generation, — 
than to assure her she should marry a lord, and ride in 
that summum bonum of story-book happiness — a coach 
and six. 

From infancy to girlhood, (the age when Dr. Watt’s 
bee was displaced by Mr. T. H. Bayley’s butterfly,) 
Henrietta experienced the serious misfortune of having 
all things her own way, — all persons at her own dispo- 
sal. Miss Broughton was not to be contradicted; Miss 
Broughton was not to be punished; Miss Broughton was 
not to be made uncomfortable. The consequence was, 
that she rendered every one else so. Nursery maids, 
governesses, masters, found it useless to expect subor- 
dination or proficiency from a person thus wondrously 
elevated above the common accidents of humanity; and 
had not the spoiled child been so pre-eminently pretty, 
and naturally of a kindly, affectionate disposition, she 
w'ould have become as hateful to all around her, as she 
was adorable to the silly aunt who beheld in her all 
that remained of a beloved sister. 

Even in society, — that stream whose unsparing fric- 
tion so soon reduces the angles of every resisting frao-- 
ment of rock, and rounds it to a pebble,— Henrietta 


MAINTENANCE. 


7 


was destined to a far less severe schooling than usually 
attends the heirs and heiresses of clay; — and precisely 
because she was an heiress. A lovely girl with sixty 
thousand pounds is very unlikely to be severely handled, 
unless when her absence renders the lesson profitless. 
While she was away, many rival beauties decided her 
to be affected; one or two discarded suitors declared 
her to be peevish and selfish; the elderly spinsters fre- 
quenting her aunt’s card table, whispered that she was 
very high; and certain of the female companions of her 
youth, on whom she had turned her back in all the de- 
lirium of her new jewels, her presentation, and debut 
at Almack’s, pronounced her to bo very cold : — but none 
of these strictures were made audible, none of these 
disapprobations visible to Henrietta. Her smile, when 
it did make its appearance, was so sweet, that those 
around her forgot, in the delight of hailing the tardy 
dawn, how long it had been witliheld; her voice was so 
soothing, her demeanour, when she chose, so ingratia- 
ting, that every one was pleased with her whom it 
pleased her to conciliate. 

From this excess of good and evil fortune, it natural- 
ly ensued that Miss Broughton became occasionally 
fractious, and always fanciful. Every day she grew a 
more decided angel in Lady Mandeville’s estimation. 
The poor foolish woman could do nothing but quote the 
list of Henrietta’s conquests, and deplore the difficulty 
she would experience in deciding among such a congre- 
gation of suitors. 

Who, — after all, — was worthy of Henrietta.^ So very 
pretty a girl could have afforded to be portionless — so 
very rich a one to be less delicately lovely. She had 
every thing to render her a desirable connexion; but 
where was she to find a prospect sufficiently alluring, 
or the promise of a life of unalloyed and unalloyabTe 
happiness, to induce her to resign a home where she 
was worshipped, — a liberty which fortune enabled her 
to embellish with so many fortuitous attractions.^ Miss 
Broughton danced at all the balls of the season, smiled 
and chatted at all its pic-nics, gazed unmoved at the 
elite of the army and navy list, the roues of Crockford’s, 
the ennuyes of the travellers. It would not do;--not 
one of them was worth a sigh ! — She quitted Paris nt 


8 


THE SEPARATE 


the close of the carnival, leaving two inarquesses and a 
colonel of hussars to be dragged for in the Canal de 
VOurcq; and left London for Tunbridge at the end of 
the season, having expended divers quires of satin pa- 
per, in expressing her regret that it was out of her pow- 
er to return the flattering preference of Sir Thomas R., 
Captain B., &c. &c. &c. Poor Henrietta began to sigh 
over her own prospects; she was very much afraid she 
should never be able to fall in love! — But her appre- 
hensions were premature. 

Tunbridge Wells, be it known to the untravelled 
reader, is a spot where visiters of the masculine sex are 
accounted rare and valuable acquisitions. It is essen- 
tially a tea-drinking, gossiping, carpet-working place, 
extremely obnoxious to that wayward moiety of the cre- 
ation which insists on being amused; and whenever a 
solitary man drops from the skies upon its furzy, breezy, 
browsy heath, he is observed to smile for a whole day, 
yawn through the second, and disappear on the third. 
Charming as the place is held by that simple sex which 
can content itself with a vegetative, indolent mode of 
happiness, it must be acknowledged to be wholly unac- 
ceptable to the sin-loving and sorrow- working portion 
of mankind. 

Yet it was at Tunbridge that Henrietta Broughton, 
literally and figuratively speaking, met with her match. 
At church one Sunday, and on the Pantiles one Mon- 
day, she chanced to encounter one of the handsomest 
faces, united with one of the most distinguished figures, 
she had ever beheld; and whereas the solemn occasion 
of his first appearance prevented the stranger from ex- 
hibiting the established Tunbridge smile, he neither 
yawned on the Monday nor disappeared on the Tues- 
day; nay ! even another Sunday and another saw him 
still wandering among the green shades of Mount 
Ephraim, or sauntering on his brown mare towards the 
woods of Summer Hill. — It was plain that the myste- 
rious solitary found some peculiar charm in the place; 
that he was either wooing the Muse, the Egeria of the 
Chalybeate Springs, or some other nymph of the river 
Ton. 

A very slight inquiry sufllced to unravel the mystery. 
At Lady Mandeville’s next tea-party, it afibrded con- 


MAINTENANCE. 


9 


liderable delight to the maiden coterie of the place to be 
culled on to explain that the proprietor of the handsome 
face and distinguished figure, who had not yet arrived 
at the yawning epoch oi his residence at Tunbridge, 
Was a certain Sir Henry Wellwood; that he was on a 
lisit to an invalid sister; and was supposed to be at’- 
tached, or engaged (or sticking at some other of the pre-- 
liminary steps of being married) to a Miss Rodney, “a 
very beautiful Miss Rodney, also resident with Mrs. 
Delafield.” 

Here was — 

Food for meditation, e’en to madness, 

for Henrietta Broughton. The only man who had ever 
so far encroached upon her personal interest as to ex- 
cite her curiosity, was already pledged to another! — 
She became inquisitive concerning the lady; followed 
the veiled IVis into a music shop on the Pantiles; and 
even put her horse to a canter one hot day in July to 
catch a glimpse of Miss Rodney’s face, as she rode 
with her veil thrown back, side by side with her lover, 
along the Bridge road. But that single glance sufficed 
to assure Miss Broughton that Mrs. Delafield’s friend 
must be one of the most piquante or most meritorious 
women in the world; since, according to La Bruyere, 
“ When an ugly woman produces a tender passion, it 
must be in proportion to some quality she possesses su- 
perior to that of beauty.” — It was plain, therefore, that 
Miss Rodney was either a Mrs. Montagu or a Hannah 
More; for she had red hair and was slightly pitted with 
the small-pox: — a female whose face is usually covered 
with a veil, may indeed be safely predicted as either in- 
ordinately ugly or miraculously handsome. Henrietta 
was satisfied that Sir Henry Wellwood must have found 
all the beauties of his sick sister’s visiter in her mind. 

But even this discovery was far from consolatory to 
Henrietta. It mattered little how unattractive the ob- 
ject of Sir Henry’s engagement, it precluded him from 
the possibility of adding his name to the list of her own 
adorers. Again and again she met him, and as often 
decided that since the days of Theseus of the Phidian 
Torso, no “mortal mixture of earth’s mould” (or mar^ 


10 


THE separate 


ble) had ever been so handsome^ nor, since those of 
George the Prince, none ever half so graceful. He 
looked intelligent — he seemed courteous^ — Miss Pin- 
chet and Miss Winchet, Mrs. Drone and Mrs. Crone, 
occasionally alluded at Lady Mandeville’s cassinotable 
to the superior elegance of his manners, the peculiar 
amiability of his disposition, and the charm by which 
his presence enhanced the tea and toast of poor dear 
Mrs. Delafield. In short, the man was a paragon, — as 
complete a paragon as Henrietta’s selfj but, alas! his 
merits were rendered as negative to her by the claims 
of that inexpressibly odious Miss Rodney, as if he had 
been Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. 

Wondrous are the coincidences of human destiny! — 
Had Miss Broughton’s introduction to Sir Henry Well- 
wood chanced amid the glare of a London ball-room, it 
is highly probable that she might have noticed nothing 
striking in his appearance, except that he was rather 
grave for his age, and danced abominably; nay! even if 
at the close of the season Lady Mandeville had betaken 
herself to Cowes instead of the humdrum latitudes of 
Tunbridge, and launched her lovely niece among the 
fashionable yachts and yachters, Henrietta might have 
looked upon him, among the multitude of Lord Roberts 
and Lord Harries, as a man of very secondary impor- 
tance. It was only at dandyless Tunbridge, and about 
to be married without having been warned by preterna- 
tural suggestions of the existence of a Miss Henrietta 
Broughton, that she fancied him into an idol. And 
\yhen, at the expiration of a fortnight, providence and a 
light calash brought down to Mount Sion a pretty lively 
little Mrs. Etherington (who had become a widow so 
early that she scarcely remembered having been a wife,) 
— a half-sister of Mr. Delafield, and half and half friend 
of Lady Mandeville’s, who soon managed to gossip, 
push, and carry on an acquaintances between the two 
families, — Henrietta was as ready to be fallen in love 
with as it was possible to conceive. She looked in the 
glass, and remembered Miss Rodney’s tawny locks; 
till she trembled either for Sir Henry’s steadiness of 
purpose, or the accomplishment of her own projects. 


MAINTENANCE. 


11 


CHAPTER II. 


To ask the reason why thou art in love. 

Or what might be the noblest aim in love, 

Would overthrow that kindly rising warmth 
That many times slides gently o’er the heart. 

Beaumout. 

“Well, Hatty, my dear, what have you to amuse 
yourself in this dullest of dull places?” cried the fair 
widow, extending her hand to Miss Broughton, who had 
panted across the heath one morning to pay her a visit, 
in the vain hope of meeting Sir Henry. 

“I do not find it dull. We have charming walks, 
and the air on the heath is the purest in England,” re- 
plied Henrietta, repeating the established phrase of the 
Pinchets and Winchets, the Crones and the Dronesj 
and illustrating the assertion by exhibiting her soft blue 
eyes scorched into an inflammation. 

“The heath? — nonsense! — Good only for donkeys 
and nursery maids! — Do you suppose I came here to 
stroll about on the heath, or take the dust in a fly, like 
my estimable friend Lady Mandeville?” 

Miss Broughton accepted the hint to say something 
that intended to be civil, about the cause being unim- 
portant since the effect was so desirable^ but she jlid not 
make the case out very clearly. 

“Well, never mind all that,” cried the giddy Mrs. 
Etherington, who was too wholesale a dealer in phrases 
herself not to mistrust them when uttered by other peo- 
ple. “I take it for granted you are very glad to see 
me. But tell me what you intend to do to amuse me?” 

“ I concluded yon came here to amuse yourself,” said 
Henrietta, somewhat piqued,* “and was rather surprised 
that a person able to command a tour to Spa, Pyrmont, 


12 


THE SEPARATE 


Carlsbad, Doncaster, or the Highlands, should think of 
braving the old Tunbridge routine of ‘ a party ’ to the 
High Rocks, Hever, Penshurst, Knowle, and all the 
other dead lions of the neighbourhood. ” 

“ Spa, or Doncaster!” reiterated the coquette. “Green- 
wich or Highgate! — What have / to do with the Pouhon or 
the Leger? My dear child, you have been roaming yon- 
der among the flocks of geese to some purpose. Don’t 
you remember, Hatty, my telling you a long history one 
day last season, as we were walking in Kensington Gar- 
dens, about a man who had just inherited ten thousand 
a-year?” 

“Whom you had refused, when a younger brother, 
last winter, at Paris? — ^Perfectly!” 

“No, my dear, not refused ! — It never came to a po- 
sitive, bona fide proposal. We flirted together most un- 
mercifully; and nothing prevented my falling as much 
in love as I believed the hero of my romance to have 
done, but the difficulty one experiences in facing the 
horrors of starvation, when called on to decide the mat- 
ter between dinner and dinner such as one eats in the 
Chaussee d’Antin. I really believe it was the flavour 
of a Charlotte Russe which proved to me the impossi- 
bility of marrying Captain Wellwood, and living on 
half a crown a-year!” 

“Mrs. Delaneld’s brother?” cried Henrietta, start- 
ing from the listless attitude in which she had been 
giving audience to these uninteresting details of her 
friend’s affairs. 

“Precisely! — ‘Sir Henry Wellwood, of Wellwootl 
Abbey, in the county of Stafford,’ as our friend, pom- 
pous old Pinchet, would call him; Harry Wellwood, 
the sighing, sentimental cavalier of the Bois de Bou- 
logne, as I am myself inclined to define him; and Sir 
Henry, the humble adorer of Helena Etherington, as I 
am very positively bent on making him. I know my 
man, Hatty; and I promise you wedding-cake before 
Lord Mayor’s day.” 

“I am afraid you will disappoint both yourself and 
me,” observed Miss Broughton, with a slight curl of 
the hp. “ Sir Henry is engaged to be married to Miss 
Rodi .” 



‘‘ Oh, par cried Mrs. Etherington, burst- 


MAINTENANCE. 


13 


ing into a lit of laughter^ “ these feline coteries of the 
Wells, are, without exception, the most miscompre- 
hending and misrepresenting set! — Arabella Rodney 
happens to be a natural sister of Wellvvood and Mrs. 
Delafield; and most affectionately beloved by both. I 
knew they were anxious the circumstance of her birth 
should not transpire in a temple of Echo such as this| 
but I had no suspicion that so strange a misconception 
could arise.” 

“His natural sister!”— reiterated Henrietta, with 
throbbing temples; “how very strange! how stupid we 
have all been — how ” 

“Good morning, Mrs. Etherington,” said Sir Hen* 
ry, entering the room, or rather leaning over the .draw- 
ing-room window, opening to the grass-plot' which the 
proprietor of Bellevue Villa always called a lawn in his 
Delvic advertisements. “I am come on an embassy 
from mv sister, who insists on attempting to catch cold 
by drinkinw tea at the High Rocks this evening. Will 
you be of the party?” 

“Oh! pray let us go and catch cold!” cried the co- 
quette; “any acquisition is desirable in this uneventful 
place. But where is your gallantry, that you do not 
invite my little friend to be of the party?” she added, 
affecting a patronising tone towards Henrietta, which 
caused the colour to rise in the cheeks of the heiress. 

“I am happy to say my interference is needless,” 
said he, bowing very respectfully towards the younger 
and fairer of the two ladies; “ since Lady Mandeville 
has already induced us to hope that if you undertake 
the care of Miss Broughton, she will grant us the favour 
of her company.” 

Mrs. Etherington bit her lips. A suspicion crossed 
her mind, that perhaps she was only invited to play the 
chaperon to Lady Mandeville’s niece. She half re- 
solved to be sulky and refuse; but that would not pre- 
vent Sir Henry from being there. “ If the evening 
should be fine, perhaps I may drive that way,” said she, 
at last; and Welhvood was obliged to return to his sis- 
ter, and Henrietta to her aunt, in all the anxiety of this 
inconclusive answer. 

The evening did, however, prove fine: as heavy a dew 
rose from the hop-gardens as Mrs. Delafield’s delicate 

VoL. I. 2 


THE SEPARATE 


U 


lungs could desire; and, at seven in the evening, MisS j 
Broughton found herself seated in Mrs. Etherington’s I 
ponj-carriage, looking pretty, conscious, and agitated; 
thinking a great deal about Miss Rodney; and a great 
deal more about her half brother. It is probable that 
the thoughts of her companion were taking pretty near- 
ly the same direction; lor she was equally absent, and 
less flighty than usual; and, though attired in a most 
victorious pink bonnet and feathers, could not help 
glancing enviously towards the deep blue eyes whicn 
seemed to borrow an intenser hue from Henrietta’s sim- 
ple muslin dress and white capote. Every age has its 
improvements. The march of intellect had already 
taught Miss Broughton, who came into this learned 
world six years later than her friend, that the attention 
of the male sex is not to be attracted by finery. She 
would not have arrayed her pretty face in Mrs. Ethe- 
rington’s pink bonnet and feathers for the world. 

Either under the influence of the reverie which had 
affected her ever since Sir Henry Well wood’s bow over 
the window-sill in the morning, or perhaps bewildered 
in her topographical knowledge by the provoking tri- 
umph of Henrietta’s quaker-like simplicity, Mrs. Ethe- 
rington chose to instruct her duodecimo postillion in a 
cross-road to the Rocks; which would enable her to 
leave a note at some house, some villa, — the whereabout 
of which seemed equally problematical to the lady of 
the white capote and the lady of the pink bonnet — the 
post-boy and the pony. At length, after much perplex- 
ity, a vast deal of turning and returning, a few shrieks, 
a few precipices, and more than one proposal of return- 
ing home, the villa was made by the voyagers, — the 
note deposited; — and with a miraculous complication of 
instructions, from a pudding-eating Sussex footman, 
about “going right on, and turning right anent, and 
keeping the hay-stack afore ’em, and leaving the wood 
to the lee,” they set off towards the Rocks. 

The evening was too beautiful, and the last notes of 
the blackbirds in the dingles on either side the road too 
melodious, to admit of being out of humour; while Mrs. 
Etherington pointed out to Henrietta the extreme pic- 
turesqueness of the little valley whose bank they were 
skirting, and which lay so precipitously and so far be- 


MAINTENANCE. 


15 


low the road, that they could scarcely distinguish the 
various tints of the profusion of water-flowers rising 
from the brook that threaded its green meadows. Poor 
souls! they little anticipated how soon their botanical 
judgment on the subject was likely to be amended. 

But why affect the mystery of romance in so familiar 
an incident? The postillion, who had maintained a 
brisk trot while obeying the letter of his instructions of 
“keeping the haystack afore ’em,” thought proper to 
tickle his spirited ponies to the same pace, when on the 
point of “leaving the wood to the lee;” and having 
turned a sharp angle into a by-lane (a regular Tunbridge 
lane, consisting of a single gravelly rut bordered by 
hedge-rows,) half a minute’s full gallop conveyed the 
little chaise down a hill-side a couple of hundred yards 
in very nearly perpendicular descent. The effort was 
considerable, — for it sufficed to leave ponies, chaise^ 
postillion, and ladies, breathless at the bottom; — the 
chaise and Mrs. Etherington quite insensible, — the po- 
nies and boy considerably fractured, — and poor Henri- 
etta panting with consternation! — After a few moments 
of dismay, she took courage to limp on towards the 
Rocks; and on the road thither was overtaken by Sir 
Henry Wellwood, in a solitary fly, conveying the pro- 
visions for the pic-nic. Was it fright, or the pain of 
her wounded ankles which made her grow so faint when 
he approached! — Was it compassion or love which made 
him turn so pale at the spectacle? 

It does not signify! — No person could be blind to 
the fact that Henrietta’s bruises excited far more sym- 
pathy in his bosom than Helena’s broken arm; and when 
the latter was finally emancipated from the sick-room 
to which she was many weeks confined by so serious an 
accident, she had the satisfaction of learning from her 
friend Mrs. Delafield, not only the circumstantial evi- 
dence of the shock she bad experienced on hearing of 
the accident, — that she “never had such a turn in her 
life — actually shook and trembled for a week after- 
wards, and that her nerves w'ere worn to a cambric 
thread; but that the courtship had been proceeding be- 
tween poor dear Harry and that charming creature poor 
4ear Miss Broughton, with unabated ardour; and that 


16 


THE SEPARATE 


poor dear Lady Mandeville and herself had very little 
doubt the wedding would take place within a month.” 

“Poor dear” Mrs. Delafield, who was a valetudi- 
narian by right divine (a seven months’ child reared by 
the skill of the apothecary,) had so long been in the ha- 
bit of pitying herself, that she had contracted one of 
bestowing her unsolicited compassion on the whole hu- 
man race. She “poor deared” the very lovers them- 
selves in the height of their raptures^ and yet, with in- 
stinctive wrong-headedness, passed over the mortifica- 
tion of the pretty little widow, who was certainly the 
“poor dearest” of the whole partyj particularly when 
she found that long before Lord Mayor’s day, wedding- 
cake was in progress for the nuptials of “Sir Henry 
Well wood, of Well wood Abbey, in the county of Staf- 
ford, with Henrietta, only daughter of the late John 
Conybeare Atterfield Broughton, Esq., M. P,” 


CHAPTER III. 


Ob 1 trustless state of miserable men, 

That build your bliss on hope of earthly things, 

And vainly think yourselves most happy then, 

When painted faces with smooth flattering 
Do fawn on you! Spenser. 

In bold defiance of the charge of tautology, we com- 
mence this chapter in the very words of our first: “ It 
was a bright, sunshiny morning, that beamed on the 
ceremonial of Henrietta Broughton’s wedding;” and 
though the season was far from propitious to the details 
of elegant display, — though at that brick-laying and 
white-washing period of the year not a bishop was to 
be had for love or fashion, — though forced to content 
herself with bridesmaids of less than patrician dignity, 
and to step into her travelling-chariot in Maddox 
Street, among a herd of plasterer’s boys in paper caps, 
with only four carriages and two cabriolets to crowd 


MAINTENANCE, 


17 

I the narrow way, — Lady Well wood’s anxious vanity 
was almost satisfied!— She had observed Mrs. Ethe- 
rington, who insisted on an invitation to the solemnity 
by way of proving that she was not piqued, (and the 
sleeve of whose Parisian pelisse was still tied up, with 
the arm gracefully disposed in a sling,) stop short in 
her flirtation with Lord Sandys, the bridesman, to ad- 
mire the beauty of her Brussels veilj while her vain, 
silly aunt, half-whimpering, half-joyous, whispered, as 
she approached the altar, that all the Wellwood family 
were of opinion she looked like an angel. In short, 
the wedding was a very proper wedding; plenty of 
white satin and orange-blossom, plenty of hysterics 
and aromatic vinegar; and a charming dead faint in the 
vestry from poor dear Lady Mandeville, when the 
bride was torn from her arms. The Dean was obliged 
to fan her in the passage with his shovel hat. 

There was one person present, however, at this 
moving scene, who neither wept nor fainted — neither 
flirted with the bridesman, nor moralized with the 
Dean; had no recourse to a salts-bottle, nor the least 
anxiety concerning the texture of Miss Broughton’s 
Brussels point; and yet experienced a far deeper inte- 
rest in the proceedings of the morning than any of those 
who seemed to fancy that mutes should have been sta- 
tioned at the vestry door, and hat-bands distributed to 
the afflicted company: — -this was Arabella Hodney. 

Of all the world she was, perhaps, the most attached 
to her brother Wellwood. Peculiarly sensitive to the 
humiliation of her birth, and proportionably grateful for 
the pains taken by Sir Henry to make her forget the 
single shade by which she was less fortunate than him- 
self and his sister Delafield, she had learned to regard 
him with a tenderness and veneration amounting almost 
to idolatry. She had long been of opinion that he was 
the most perfect creature on earth, and therefore de^ 
served to be the happiest; nor had she been able to 
think with less than the most eager anxiety on the pe- 
rils and dangers of his choice of a wife, ever since his 
accession to title and estates placed him in the way of 
being wooed by the ladies. People may talk of the 
bolts of Cupid; but those who have the misfortune to 

claim the distinction of being called a good match, arf> 

■ 


18 


THE SEPARATE 


well aware that Hymen is by far the most cunning archer 

of the two. ^ 1 

It was Miss Rodney’s penetration of mind which de- 
tected the real nature of Mrs. Etherington’s projects, 
and exposed them to her brother; — it was Miss Rod- 
ney who found out the schemes of the Pinchets and the 
Winchets to marry him to an indigent cousin; — it \vas 
Miss Rodney who discerned the partiality entertained 
for Sir Henry by Lady Mandeville’s niece; and above 
all, it was Miss Rodney, and Miss Rodney alone, who 
had courage to forewarn him that the pretty, witty, fas- 
cinating heiress, was a spoiled child, and would, pro- 
bably, become a wilful wife. She did not interfere, — 
she did not advise; but, sooth to say, she did most 
earnestly implore Sir Henry to take the case duly into 
consideration before he ventured to plunge into the boil- 
ing, eddying, roaring, menacing Charybdis of matrimo- 
ny! — Of course, he gave ear to her prayer, and com- 
plied with her request :-^brothers always do on such 
occasions! No! it was less of a surprise than an af- 
fliction to her to learn from Wellwood, on the follow- 
ing morning, that he had proposed for the beautiful 
Henrietta, and that a day was already fixed for their 
union. All farther expostulation being unavailing and 
unwise^ nothing was left for her but to love and make 
herself loved by the bride as warmly as she could, that 
she might, at least, attempt, to counteract by her in- 
fluence the mischances prognosticated by her foresight. 
She had little doubt of finding herself still useful to her 
dear, good, indulgent, considerate Harry, as a consoling 
friend, a forbearing mediator. 

Had any one presumed to hint to Sir Henry Well- 
wood, during those etherial days of courtship which are 
devoted by the lover to law, and the lady to mantua- 
makers and milliners, that he could ever need consola- 
tion when united to the lovely and loving Henrietta, or 
a peace-maker between himself and the idol of his soul, 
he would have been very much affronted. But Ara- 
bella, who had accompanied Mrs. Delafield to town to 
be present at “poor dear Harry’s” wedding, already 
found increasing reason to suspect that a beautiful face, 
with a dowry of two thousand per annum, might not be 
all-in-all sufficient to the happiness of matrimonial life. 


MAINTENANCE, 


19 


Many things occurred between the lovers, and many 
more between their respective solicitors, which produced 
an unsatisfactory impression on Miss Rodney’s mind. 
She had long perceived that Lady Mandeville was a 
foolj and did not follow the popular prejudice of con- 
necting a bad head with “an excellent heart.’’ She 
was wise enough to know, that good sense is the foun- 
dation of all good feelingj and to perceive, that a per- 
son so perplexed by the absurdities of a weak and un- 
cultivated understanding, could not have presided in a 
profitable manner over the education of her niece. The 
aunt being a prating egotist, she misdoubted that Hen- 
rietta’s character might be of the selfish class. 

At length, the stormy moments of legal preliminaries 
came to darken the summer atmosphere of love; and 
even Sir Henry, blind and enthusiastic as he was, could 
not but perceive that at the age of twenty, his goddess 
had contrived to imbibe a most precocious knowledge of 
the world and its ways. When Lady Mandeville ut- 
tered that repugnant Lined n’s-Innism — the word “Join- 
ture,” — Henrietta recoiled not from the sound; — lis- 
tened with great complacency to the discussions that 
arose between the rival cormorants of the law, respect- 
ing the amount of pin-money which was to render her 
independent of the man of her heart; and worse — far 
worse than all, — expressed neither surprise nor horror 
in perceiving, in the draught of a marriage-settlement 
submitted to Lady Mandeville for approbation, the fol- 
lowing loathsome clause: — 

“ Upov Trust that they, the said N. N. and M. M., 
or the Survivor or Survivors of them, or the Trustee or 
Trustees for the time being thereof, do and shall thence- 
forth, during the joint lives of the said Sir H. W. and 
H. B. his intended wife, from and out of the dividends 
and yearly income of the said Trust Fund, raise and 
retain the yearly sum of ^2000, of lawful money of 
Great Britain, free from taxes, and clear of all other 
deductions. And do and shall, by equal quarterly pay- 
ments, on the 25th day of March, the 24th day of June, 
the 29th day of September, and the 25th day of De- 
cember, in every year, (the first of such quarterly pay- 
ments to become due on such of those days as shall 


20 


THE SEPARATE 


happen next after the solemnization of the said intended 
marriage,) pay over the said several quarterly instal- 
ments of the said yearly sum of ^02OOO, as the same 
shall become due; and be received into the proper hands 
of the said H. B., or unto such person or persons, and 
for such ends, intents, and purposes as the said H. B., 
notwithstanding her intended coverture, shall, from 
time to time, after the same shall have become actually* 
due, and not by way of anticipation, by any note or 
writing under her hand, direct or appoint. To the in- 
tent, that the said yearly sum of ^2000 may be and re- 
main a separate personal and unalienable provision for 
the said H. B. during her said intended coverture, and 
may not be subject to the debts, control, disposition, or 
engagements of the said Sir H. W. her intended hus- 
band.” 

“This, at least, I fancy we may omit,” observed Sir 
Henry, smiling disdainfully, and drawing his pencil 
across the heinous insinuation. 

“And why?” said Henrietta, with calmness. “It 
is not unusual, 1 understand.” 

They were sitting side by side on a sofa — the arm of 
the lover encircling the slender waist of the “ idol of 
his soul;” — he withdrew it without a word. 

“ Mr. Codicil informs me,” said Lady Mandeville, 
with an air of importance, “ that it is ,a very proper 
precaution to insert in the marriage settlements of a 
young person in possession of Henrietta’s splendid for- 
tune and expectations, some provision of this descrip- 
tion. No one can tell what may happen.” 

“And then it is a mere form,” said Henrietta. 

“ What does it signify how much nonsense they choose 
to scribble upon a parcel of skins of parchment, which 
neither you nor I shall ever read;, and which appear to 
form a sort of etiquette connected with the marriao-e 
ceremony. ” ^ 

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Sir Henry. Sacrilege 
you mean ;---a blasphemy against every feeling of ge- 
nerous confidence! Can you, dearest Henrietta, can 
you think it necessary to take such precautions against 
the man to whom you are about to intrust the destinies 
of your future life?” 


maintenance. 


21 


“I hope she would not think of intrusting them 
without such precautions,” cried Lady MandevjUe, al- 
ready beginning to suspect nefarious views on the part 
of the bridegroom. “ I have no opinion of people who 
pretend to be superior to the common ways of the world. 
If it be the custom to provide a separate maintenance in 
the marriage settlements of a young person of such a 
splendid fortune and expectations as my i^iece, why 
Xt comply?-My frienO, Lady Forster, who had not 
lo large an income as Hatty by three hundred a-year, 
(and io expectations to speak of,) had two 
five hundred settled upon her for separate maintenance, 
Xd only look at Lady Blackacre,— what would she 
have done, I should like to know, with her odious Mtn- 
S huSand, if she had not made sure of Blackacre 

""^^B^uf Wettd rntrlir Jonah Blackacre,” said 

MissBrough1Xtenderly,so.tenderlythaU^^ 

aU TvYuKe^^y leatXto Ihe lawyers' the tiresome 


wor 


TlTl'rt this clause—” persisted Sir Henry. 

»Do let my aunt have her own ^ay,” the 

®“<rf-.fiX'hv her open countenance and beaming smile 
Satisfied by P matter as one of no moment^ 

that Henrietta regarded he m^^ 

unless to appease the siuy p J ^ when the 

Henry honour of sustaining her la- 

Dean was promoted t vestry, and when the 

dyship’s fainting pers , i i alono- the Dover road 

bndartravelling^carnage bovvled_al^^^^^ 

towards Mrs. Delafie satisfied that the 

were to pass the honey- , py forty-one 

marriage “ »a separatf maintenance!” 

'AhTpoT^r Henry Wellwood! little did he imagine 


THE SEPARATE 


22 

that he should one day regard that sentence as the only 
palliative of his folly — the only consolation of his wretch- 
.edness! 

Mean while, nothing could be more auspiciously bril- 
liant than the position of the parties. It is astonishing | 
how people rise in the estimation of their friends at the | 
epoch of a prosperous marriage. Sir Henry and Hen- j 
rietta had both maintained through life a very comforta- 
ble degree of popularity; but no sooner did the news- 
papers announce their union, than they were canonized ■ 
into saints. While Mrs. Delafield shook her head to 
all her successive morning visiters, and brandished her 
cambric handkerchief in honour of the superior good 
fortune of “ poor dear Harry,” she was assured on all 
sides that Henrietta was the most charming creature in 
the world , — so accomplished,— -so elegant; while Ara- 
bella was destined to hear some eight and forty times in 
the four and twenty hours, that her brother had “ drawn 
a prize. ” 

Even Lady Mandeville, who found it difficult to be 
satisfied with the excellence of any thing or any body 
belonging to her niece, had sufficient faith in the una- 
nimous verdict of society, to believe that the Stafford- 
shire hero was at once the most distinguished and most 
virtuous of mankind. Her friend Lady Wheyfield 
(who had a cousin whose husband’s brother. Lord Shore- 
ham, lived within ten miles of Well wood Abbey) as- 
sured her that he was the best neighbour in the world, 
and quite an example in the county; — had new-floored 
all the pews in the village church, and bestowed a 
sheep to be wrestled for at the Candlemas fair. Her 
friend Lord Tothill had a nephew, a cornet in the regi- 
ment of dragoons in which Captain Wellwood had for- 
merly flourished his sabre, who proclaimed him to be 
one of the best fellows in Europe. Her friend, the 
Duke of Warminster, hinted that her new nephew-in- 
law would do well to stand for the county at the next 
general election; while the universal chorus of “dis- 
tinguished officer,” — “high-minded man,” — “intel- 
lectual, — well-bred, — conscientious,” lasted for full a 
fortnight after the fall of the curtain in Maddox Street. 
Oh! plausible adulation, — oh! amiable mendacity!-- 
purporting, like the gracious friendship of a high sheriff 


maintenance. 


23 

towards some malefactor at the foot of the gallows, to 
diminish the ignominy and horror of the crisis! — Why 
must we either be hanged or married to elicit the una- 
nimous interest of our fellow-creatures!— 


CHAPTER IV. 


I was more than once nearly choked with gall during the honey-moon, 
and had lost all comfort in life before my friends had done wishing me joy. 

R. B. Shbridan. 

Arabella was wise enough to decline all the press- 
ing invitations which, in the course of the six following 
months, reached her from Wellwood Abbey. She 
judged it better that Harry should become acquainted 
at once, with the best and worst of Henrietta’s charac- 
terj and was enough of a woman to be aware that the 
presence of an individual of her own sex, would suffice 
to impose a mask (the silken half mask of fashionable 
disguisal) on the countenance of the bride. She even 
suffered Lady Mandeville to make a six weeks* visit in 
Staffordshire, and come away quite satisfied that Lady 
Wellwood’s equipages, suite of drawing-rooms, and 
precedence in the county were every thing the fondest 
aunt could desire, before she listened to Mrs. Delafield’s 
entreaties that she would go and see how “poor dear 
Harry ” managed to support the wonderful accession of 
happiness and good fortune secured to him by a mar- 
riage with the prettiest girl in London, with a fortune 
of two thousand a-year. _ 

But Arabella, in preparing for her journey, knew 
that she was not about to interrupt a conjugal tete-a- 
tete. There was a friend of Sir Henry Wellwood’s 
bachelor days, a certain Mr. Allstone, who having just 
arrived from the continent, was all impatience to go 
and take a peep at the beautiful bride of his old crony, 
and a run or two with the Wellwood hounds before the 


THE SEPARATE 


24 

close of the hunting season; and Miss Rodney naturally 
conceived that he would be far less in her brother’s 
vvayj if she partly undertook the task of entertaining^ 
him. Besides, by visiting them towards the close of 
March, there would be time to become acquainted with 
her sister-in-law before the commencement of the Lon- 
don season, without tiring her patience by too long an 
intrusion on her domestic circle. She was not quite at 
her ease in the thought of finding a mistress — a fine 
lady mistress — at the Abbey; where, during her occa- 
sional visits, she had been accustomed to the entire con- 
fidence of its master; but her own dear Henry was still, 
she hoped, unchanged — and still, she was quite sure, 
the most excellent and beloved of brothers. 

Of all seasons of the year, March is, perhaps, the 
least propitious to a formal country visit. In summer, 
the geniality of the atmosphere dissolves even the ice 
of unsociability; in winter, the glow of the fire-side 
ripens the heart into friendly feelings; but March, that 
month of chilly daylight, of endless mornings, makes 
people tired of each other twice as soon as wtien the 
bright sunshine of midsummer is smiling over its pro- 
digal variety of fruits and flowers and perfumes. Ara- 
bella arrived at the Abbey an hour before dinner. Sir 
Henry and Tom Allstone were not yet returned from 
hunting; and Lady Wellwood, who apologized for the 
frequency of her yawns while they sat waiting for the 
sound of the dressing-bell, by informing her she had 
not seen a creature all day and had been poring over a 
stupid book till she was quite embetee, seemed over- 
powered by the fatigues of do- nothingness. They had 
no mutual acquaintances to scandalize; the Crones and 
Drones, Pinchets and Winchets, could not furnish more 
than five minutes of inquiry; nor was Miss Rodney 
qualified to satisfy the misgivings of her fair sister-in- 
law, touching “ this extraordinary report of my Aunt 
Mandeville, that short waists are coming in at Paris.” 
It was a considerable relief to both of them when Tom, 
Allstone’s ringing laugh was heard in the hall; while 
Sir Henry entering the library, folded the new comer 
to his heart. Lady Wellwood noticed, however, that 
his eyes were swimming with tears at the close of the 
embrace; and secretly voted that they were both ex- 


MAINTENANCE. 


25 


ceedingly absurd. Poor thing! — She had never expe- 
rienced the warmth of brotherly or sisterly tenderness, 

“ It is such a bore being obliged to dress for that hor- 
rid Mr. Allstone,” whispered her ladyship to Arabella, 
as she lounged up the great staircase with an affectation 
of showing the visiter to her apartments. “I never 
thought of such a thing before he came. I really hate 
the sight of the man.” 

Miss Rodney, having never till now witnessed a symp- 
tom of distastejfor the toilet on the part of her lovely sis- 
ter-in-law, could not but form a suspicion that Henry en- 
couraged the idol “of his soul” in habits of indolence; 
more particularly when Henrietta made her re-appear- 
ance in the drawing-room in a blaze of splendour, infer- 
ring that she was little versed in the graceful simplicity 
of half-dress; — that most becoming of all feminine cos- 
tumes, which evidently falls short of conquest, while it 
testifies a wife’s respect towards her husband and his 
guests. Miss Rodney felt concerned for Lady Well- 
wood rather than for' herself, when she observed how 
conspicuous was this bridal magnificence by the side of 
her own modest elegance. A moment afterwards, she 
was still more concerned on Harry’s account; for the 
wonder and admiration with which he gazed on tlie 
beauty of his wife, proved that he was not in the habit 
of finding it enhanced by her own exertions. 

“ Why do you always wear a cap, dearest Hatty?” 
he whispered, as they crossed the hall towards the dining 
room. “Your own hair is so beautiful and so becom- 
ing. I have not seen it dressed before since we came 
here.” 

“What is the use of throwing away time on dress, 
when there is no one to see it?” said the “ idol of his 
soul,” without at all intending to hurt his feelings; and 
Sir Henry, by way of disguising his vexation, was of 
course ready with his Lyttleton — 

Where none admire. His useless to excel, 

Where none are beaux, His vain to be a belle. 


“ But you are, or were, a great beau,” cried Mr. All- 
stone, who was a very literal person. 

VoL. I. 3 


2G 


THE SEPARATE 


“ And a great admirer — ” observed Arabella, gentl j, ; 

“as Lady Well wood knows better than any one.” | 

“There Hatty, there!” cried Sir Henry; “you see ; 
you have every encouragement to excel. So pray in-' ' 

dulge my fancy oftener; and tell Lawford to burn half | 

those Frenchified caps with which you love to disguise | 
yourself.” i 

“My aunt Mandeville never wished me to dress my 
hair, unless to go out,’* replied the beauty, pouting: 

“ the constant crepe breaks it, and wears it out.” ^ 

“The constant what?” — cried Tom Allstone. ; 

You dunces call it frizzing,” said Miss Rodney, , 
perceiving that Lady Well wood was displeased to find 
herself exclusively the subject of conversation. 

“ Ha! ha i ha! ha! — Frizzing! and cannot a lady come 
down to dinner in these times without frizzing, or a 
French cap on her head ?” — cried Tom with a vociferous 
laugh; while Lady Well wood directed a look towards ; 
him that might have frozen a salamander. 

“ Remember we have no umpire,” remonstrated Miss > 
Rodney. “Two men and two women might dispute 
on such a point from now till Christmas; therefore I * 
M'arn you against attempting the argument.” 

“ Argument!” reiterated Tom, with another insult- j 
ing laugh, while Harry tried to telegraph to his lady a !' 
signal tor a conciliatory glass of wine. But no 1 — Hen- 
rietta would not see ! She leaned very busily over her [ 
fish; and had not so much as a smile to bestow on the j 

friend of that horrid Mr. Allstone. The dinner was | 

sulky and comfortless. Sir Henry had no resource but i 
his inquiries of Arabella concerning the Delafields, and \ 
others of their mutual relatives and friends, who were ! 
far less interesting to Lady Well wood than to her hus- ( 
band. It was the first time since her marriage she had ! 
seen his attention directed to any other than her own ! 
selfish self; and by the time the ladies found themselves ! 
drinking their coffee in an embarrassed tete-a-tete, j 
Henrietta had conceived almost as strong a prejudice ! 
against “ that Miss Rodney,” as she had experienced ' 
during the early weeks of her visit to Tunbridge. It I 
was plain that her comfort was at an end: it was plain 
that Well wood’s attentions were about to be en- 
grossed by this unwelcome intruder. Could Mrs. Dela- 


MAINTENANCE. 


27 


{field have suspected the unsatisfactory impression mu- 
tually produced between her sisters by the first evening 
at Wei I wood Abbey, she would have made it her business 
to write and implore poor dear Arabella’s return to town 
on the following morning. 

But Miss Rodney passed too wakeful a night to have 
tne least inclination for the journey. Her midnight 
cogitations enabled her to decide that the “ happiest of 
-men” was, after all, a miserable dog; and that the 
“ most charming woman in the world ” could be sullen, 
peevish, and ill-bred; — that the fermentation had com- 
menced, and that a mediator might already find occu- 
pation at the Abbey. 

The next day—ay ! even before she had been four and 
twenty hours in the house, the fact became painfully cor- 
4'oborated. Just as she was finishing a letter to Mrs. 
Delafield, to assure her that she had found their poor 
dear brother and sister in perfect health, her concluding 
phrase was interrupted by the hurried entrance of Hen- 
rietta into the adjoining room of which the door was 
ajar, with Sir Henry closely following, and most affec- 
tionately remonstrating. Her ladyship’s impeded res- 
piration seemed to approach nearer to a fit of hysterics, 
than any thing Arabella had heard since the scene in St. 
X^eorge’s vestry. 

“It does not signify,’’ faltered the voice of Henriet- 
ta. “ It is too late now; the poor thing is on its road 
to London. Thank goodness ! my aunt will be kind to 
it for my sake — ” 

“ But, my dear, dear Hatty 1 ” interrupted Sir Henry, 
pleadingly, “ you cannot for a moment suppose that I 
had any unkind intentions.^” 

“Oh ! no — certainly not!— Did I say that I thought 
you unkind?” 

“You have acted as if you thought so.” 

“ I trust I have too much pride to allow any thing 
Belonging to me to become troublesome at Wellwood 

Abbey.” . 

“Pride! nay, dearest, this is a mere affair of tem- 
per; you are bent on vexing and mortifying me.” 

“ You have to thank yourself for teaching me the les- 
son.” 

You seem determined to reduce it to very bad prac- 


28 


THE SEPARATE 


tice; and make every one a sufferer by your profficieis- I 
cy.” ! 

“Except poor Jessy! I have taken care that the only | 
favourite I have in the world shall not be made misera- i 
ble to gratify old Roddington’s whims. Poor thing! — | 

she will be very happy to find herself at home again. 
Aunt Mandeville would be kind to any thing for my | 
sake.” 

Miss Rodney, completely mystified, but perceiving ! 
that the significant sigh concluding this ejaculation j 
intended to imply a similitude of feeling on these points | 
between her ladyship and her dog, found that a stiff 
matrimonial breeze was blowing. But while silently 
closing her letter and resolving to retire unseen to her 
own apartment, she was shocked to notice Lady Well- 
wood’s insensibility to the tenderness of tone with which 
Harry now inquired, — “And is not this your home, my 
own Hatty? and would not / be kind to any thing and 
every thing for your sake?”— 

But Arabella was not long tantalized by curiosity on 
the subject of this mysterious feud. While she was 
dressing for dinner, albeit unused to the gossiping 
mood, her own maid seemed so bent on being questioned 
about the “disagreeable business in the steward’s room,” 
that Miss Rodney at length gratified her by an inquiry. 

“To be sure, ma’am, it does seem strange that when 
people has every thing this world can aftbrd, they must 
always be a looking out for grievances^ and no doubt it 
would be a very wrong thing to encourage Mrs. Law- 
ford to say any thing against my lady’s temper, only, 
when a thing comes to be so very notorious ” — 

“Well! Robins, — what is the matter? — 1 see you 
have something to tell?” 

“ Why ma’am, it’s all along of this here greyhound.” 
“What here greyhound?— I see none, and have 
heard of none at present.” 

“Bless you, ma’am, no more you will hear nothing 
on it,* my lady sent it off to Lon’on by the mail”— 

“And why, and when, and” — 

“ You see, ma’am, Mr. Roddington having been here 
at Well wood, ma’am, before Sir Henry was born as one 
may say, is apt to take what my lady thinks liberties. 

And so, ma’am, as he happened to mention to Sir Henry 


MilETTEN/J^CE. 


29 


iDne morning as the greyhound, what my lady brought 
with her from tov;n, was apt to get into the preserves and 
do mischief among the game, why sure he ordered it c .ut 
up with the other dogs. And Mrs, Lawford says, 
ma’am, as the poor beast has been in the kennel these 
two months, only my lady never once took it into her 
head to ask what was become of it.” 

‘®Lady l/yellwood has not had it long: I remember 
my brother bought it for her last year, just before his 
marriage,” observed Arabella, in an apologizing way. 

** And when my lady did ask and did find out that Jessy 
was tied up to keep her from poaching, she died off* in 
such a v/ay, ma’am ! and said as her dog shouldn’t be 
no hinderance to nobody, and had it packed up in a 
basket, and packed off to Lady Mandeville in London.” 

“Well, well, it is better out of the way,” observed 
Arabella, in order to silence her companion. “Ladies’ 
dogs are generally troublesome in the country. Don't 
you remember, Robins, that Sir Henry always ordered 
Fidele to be tied up when I used to bring him here.” 

“But I don’t remember, ma’am, as ever you took a 
fit of^sulks about it, or ” 

“Perhaps I cared for it less than Lady Well wood 
does for Jessy, v/hich is the pi'ettiest Italian greyhound 
in England.” 

“ Why, bless you, ma’am, my lady didn’t use lO take 
no notice on it, not she! Mr. Roddington was a saying 
at tea-time, that she wouldn’t have thought a bit about 
it, only to make an escuse to plague Sir Henry with her 
tantrums,” 

“Roddington must be very much altered to allow 
himself to speak so disrespectfully, ” said Arabella, with 
an air of displeasure calculated to put an end lo her 
maid’s communicative vein. 

»^he almost dreaded the explanation which she laucied 
av/aited her when sho should find herself alone with 
either of the parties^ and no sooner did Henrietta drav/ 
up her pretty feet on the sofa w th p air of injured in- 
nocence portentous of a recital oi her wrongs, than. 
Arabella became suddenly engrossed by the surpassing 
attractions of one of the annuals: these literary l^ys t-iat 
lie on the tables cf the refined, to supply a hint tor ec- 
stasies when the conversation flags, uho sa. porin? 


so 


THE SEPARATE 


over the engravings till she had mechanically made her- 
self acquainted with all the Stephanolf pinxits and G. 
Heath scutpsits; but Lady Well wood was not to be si- ^ 
lenced. ,j 

“He certainly is the most hateful man on earth r 
she suddenly ejaculated. 

Miss Rodney laid down her red tabby volume with a 
look of horror, fancying the charge must refer to her 
brother. 

“ I knew there was about to be an end of all my hap- |' 
pinessi” ^ ^ | 

“What is the matter?” inquired Arabella, with a 
gentle voice and tingling ears. 

“It was so very unkind of Well wood to invite him 
to prolong his stay, knowing how heartily I dislike 1 
him,” replied Henrietta, satisfying the trembling Miss I 
Rodney that it was her brother’s friend, Tom Allstone, 
and not himself, on whom her ladyship chose to vent 
her ill -humour. “ That guffaw of his, absolutely makes 
me shudderj and then it is so impertinent to hear a man j 

descanting and delivering his judgments on the conduct ! 

of what he is pleased to call the fashionable world, 
who is totally ignorant of the common forms of society.” 

“Mr. Allstone is a man of very good family,” ob- 
served Arabella, “and might frequent any society he 
chosen but he happens to be a great despiser of fashion. 

I never saw any one more completely independent of 
the conventions of the world. He is incapable, there- 
fore, of understanding how persons may be tied down 
and circumscribed by the little silken ligaments of the 
coteries.” 

“I know nothing about ligaments and conventions,” 
cried Henrietta, sneeringly; “but I do know that he is 
a vulgar, ill-bred man, fit only for a smoking room or a 
dog-kennel.” 

The word dog-kennel rekindled all her wrath^ and she 
lay twisting the silken tassal of the sofa cushion, till it 
came off in her hand. 

“I cannot agree with you concerning his vulgarity,” 
observed Arabella. “ He is an original; — England, you 
know, is the land of originals. I never was acquainted 
with any man but Mr. Allstone, who looked uncompro- 
misingly upon things as they are;— as right or wrong. 


MAINTENANCE. 


31 


rational or irrational. — He is not to be imposed upon by 
the magic of a name.” 

Irrational i indeed! — when he is himself little bet- 
ter than a brute.” 

u Were you in distress of any kind, you would find 
him one of the most tender-hearted creatures breathing.” 

“Well, well! — I see that you and Wellwood are in 
a league to defend him; and therefore my opinion must 
be superfluous: but I shall take care to make it appa- 
rent to himself, lest he should take it into his rational 
head to prolong his visit when the hunting season is over. 
I have no idea of being insulted by people at my own 
table.” 

She did accordingly ensure a most disagreeable even- 
ing to all parties; and had not Tom Allstone’s heart 
been as tough as his hunting-boots towards the ebulli- 
tions of a lady’s temper, he must have winced under 
some of the flippancies which Lady Wellwood dis- 
charged at him in volleys. Arabella was shocked, arid 
Sir Henry distressed; but Allstone seemed amused. He 
was studying with the eye of a naturalist the singular 
species of insect, whose silken wings and barbed sting 
were extended before him. 

Lady Well wood’s last dart was of the Parthian or- 
der. Just as she was quitting the drawing-room for the 
night, she suddenly returned for an instant to inform 
them that her friend Mrs. Etheiington would be at the 
Abbey to dinner on the following day; secretly exulting 
in her knowledge of the disapprobation entertained by 
her husband, and the disgust testified by Tom Allstone, 
towards the fashionable widow and her manoeuvres. 
But when Sir Henry declared war against Jessy, she 
had resolved to enter into alliance with a favourite still 
more obnoxious to his prejudices. 

It would be ungracious to repeat the ejaculation ut- 
tered by Tom Allstone as she quitted the room. 


32 


THE SEPARATE 


CHAPTER V. 


Dorinda’s sparkling wit and €yefl 
United cast too fierce a light, 

Which blazes high, but quickly dies. 
Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight 

Love is a calmer, gentler joy. 

Smooth are his looks and soft his pace ; 
Her Cupid is a blackguard boy. 

Who thrusts his link into your facet 


Mrs. Etherington did not come alone. It was her 
custom to divide the autumn and winter among the 
friends of former years, and the bathing-places where ! 
new friendships and acquaintances are formed with so i 
much facility. Sometimes she acquired an adorer in j 
her travels, — sometimes a toady; and it had been her 
fortune to encounter at Tenby the preceding autumn, 
“a kindred soul, — a congenial mind,” in the person of i 
a Miss Letitia Broadsden, a gaunt spinster of five and 
forty, with a very long nose, a very long chin, and a 
tongue still longer than either; the daughter of a Welsh 
baronet whose person and title were both extinct. She 
had figured in her youth as a Bath belle, — in her matu- 
rity as a Litchfield blue; and now, at “ a certain age,” 
found her amusements chiefly dependent on her capa- i 
city” as a hanger-on to the idle and opulent. Her an- 
nuity of a hundred and fifty pounds a-year sufliced to 
smarten her up for the office, and a dirty spirit of sub- ' 
servience supplied the rest There was a sparkle of 
unnatural vivacity, of forced spirits about her, render- 
ing her society as charming an excitement to empty- 
headed indolent people, as it was hateful to those of 
right mind and good understanding. 

When Sir Henry Wei I wood discovered by a letter 
of ex^anation preceding by a few hours the arrival of 
Mrs. Etherington, that she was to be so unsatbfactorily 


! 

Earl of Dorset. 


MAINTENANCE. 


33 


accompanied, it delighted him to remember that the 
hunting quarters of his friend Lord Sandys, and his bro- 
ther Mr, Dornton, were established within the distance 
of half a dozen miles; and with a view to dilute in ntfm- 
bers the poison of such society as that of Helena and 
her toady, he contrived before night to transfer the 
young Nimrods to the Bachelor’s wing of Well wood 
Abbey. Arabella had nothing farther to apprehend 
from confidential interviews with her brother’s wife: — 
before dinner on the following day the party was dou- 
bled. Her ladyship had now some apology for her sa- 
tin dress and jewels a la Sevigne in the rival finery of 
Mrs. Etherington and Miss Broadsden; and some con- 
solation under her sufterings from the guffaw of Tom 
Allstone, in turning to the exquisite Frederick Dorn- 
ton; — a gentleman who piqued himself on his athletic 
person, and talked of nothing but the stable, the turf, 
and the ring, in Moliere’s petit filet de voix’’ with a 
breath perfumed with orris-root, and a little pet pair of 
mustachios glossy with pommade a la Vanille ! — In the 
course of the evening her ladyship was whispered and 
flattered into fancying herself once more Henrietta 
Broughton. 

Miss Rodney discerned with regret that her brother 
was destined to pay heavily for his hard-heartedness to 
the lap-dog; that he was harassed and vexed by the tone 
adopted by Lady Wei wood towards Lord Sandys and 
his brother; as well as by the contrast it afforded to her 
ungraciousness with his sister, and his friend Allstone. 
But the bridegroom was now in some degree initiated 
into the labyrinths of a fine lady’s temper, and forebore 
to remonstrate or retaliate. Even Arabella had occasion 
to recognise the judiciousness of his forbearance, while 
she listened to the chattering (could it be called con- 
versation?) between Lady Wellwood and her female 
guests, as they sat round a work-table in her boudoir on 
the following day. They were all most profitably em- 
ployed; — Mrs. Etherington in rubbing her transfer var- 
nish, in order to complete a pair of frigjitful screens at 
six times their original cost; — Henrietta in manufac- 
turing a tawdry work-bag for her dear aunt Mandeville; 
— and Miss Broadsden in completing some bead ma^ 
dallions for a necklace, ornamented with a series ot 


34 


THE SEPARATE 


full-fledged butterflies greatly resembling the bats and [ 
owls nailed against a barn-door. 

“Well, my dear Hatty,” exclaimed Mrs. Ethering- 
ton as soon as they were established, “and so you have 
positively determined to break Lady Mandeville’s heart t 
by passing the season at Well wood Abbey ?” j 

“ It must indeed be very difficult to quit so charm- | 
ing a place,” sighed Miss Broadsden. ^ , 

“Is it Sir Henry’s fancy or your owm?” persisted i 
Mrs. Etherington. “J^e used to delight in London; | 
and you, my dear, are naturally so fond of society, that ; 
I suspect you are both playing pretty, and wish to be 
thought more conjugal than your neighbours.” 

“ To show' the world an example of domestic felicity,” 
murmured Miss Broadsden in a qualifying tone. 

“Who told you I intended to give up London this 
season?” inquired Lady Wellwood. 

“Lady Mandeville, when I met her at Malvern last 
October.” 

“Five months ago! — a period sufficient to alter the 
views and feelings of any mortal man or woman.” 

“Not in their honey year, my love. For full twelve 
months after date of their special license, people are re- 
quired to be — “not upon velvet,” — but white satin. 
They can neither “ make up their minds” nor “change 
their minds” — for they must be “all heart” Their 
loom of life is set on their wedding-day for a year of 
bliss: and it would create confusion to alter the pat- 
tern,” said the little widow, glancing maliciously to- 
wards Lady Wellwood, whom she regarded as the 
usurper of her own rights. 

“Bravo! my dear Mrs. Etherington,” cried the toady, 
without moving her long nose from the little box of 
beads into w'hich it seemed to be digging, “you cer- 
tainly have the most original notions!” 

“When we came here last autumn,” said Henrietta, 
^lalmly, “I may possibly have mentioned to my aunt, 
that we thought of avoiding a season in town. The 
neighbourhood was much pleasanter then. Lord and 
Lady Shoreham were at the Castle, and the Rutherfords 
had their house full of company; and there were archery 
meetings going on.” 

^‘Charming neighbourhood!” ejaculated Letitia. 


MAINTENANCE. 


35 


I “ But now that Parliament has met, the place is quite 
I <leserted, — quite altered, — and I should shudder at the 
thoughts of passing the spring here all alone.” 

1 “ The spring is so very dull in the country!” said the 

voice from the bead-box. 

I “Oh, fie, fie! my dear,” cried Mrs. Etherington, 
1 “ the Rutherfords and the Shorehams, indeed! — In the 
letter Lady Mandeville vvas kind enough to show me, 
you talked of nothing but the groves and gardens^ and 
the delights of an eternal solitude with your beloved 
Wellwood! There was not a word about archery 
meetings or country neighbours; except that the monsters 
would sometimes intrude on the happiness of your tete- 
a-tete:^ 

“Country neighbours are such bores!” said the 
voice. 

“ I was not aware that my letters to my aunt Man- 
deville were exhibited like a royal bulletin for the in- 
struction of the public,” cried Lady Wellwood, with a 
heightened colour, and putting a pink stitch into one of 
the green leaves she was embroidering; “ but ^ I chose 
to write such abominable nonsense, I deserve the dis- 
grace of having it betrayed.” 

“In my opinion people ought to be put in quarantine 
on their marriage,” cried Mrs. Ethej’ington, “ lest they 
should infect the world with their folly. For instance, 
that sentimental letter of yours almost persuaded me to 
accept Mr. Sheffield, who was just then poeticizing at my 
feet about ‘domestic felicity;’ and only see the mis- 
chief that might have ensued! I might have already 
begun to complain of the dulness of his neighbourhood 
at Sheffield Park.” 

“As if you you were not able to render any neigh- 
bourhood delightful!” said Miss Broadsden. 

“ I do not see why two persons who are fond of so- 
ciety should resign it, because they are able to enjoy it 
together.” 

“ And to adorn it together,” insinuated Letitia. 

“ Nothing can be more absurd !” observed Arabella 
Rodney, laying down her book and speaking from the 
fire-side. “Half the unhappiness of married people 
arises from the exaggeration of their promises (luring 
courtship. In a fit of enthusiasm they undertake to 


36 


THE SEPARATE 


renounce the world and break off all their early connex- | 
ions, for the sake of one whose affection should rather j 
serve to enhance their value; and afterwards grow angry } 
with themselves and their partner in folly, because they 1 
are ashamed to acknowledge the blunder, and resume j 
their place as citizens of the world. Nothing can be . 
more selfish and ungenerous than one of these engross- 
ing attachments.” j 

Miss Rodney would have done better to keep her j 
philosophy to herself; for though Miss Letitia Broadsden {! 
shook her head affirmatively and ejaculated, “ Too true!” ;! 
the other two, not exactly understanding her meaning, 
fancied she v/as talking of them, and were affronted. 

“ / never was a dealer in fine sentiments,” said Lady || 
Wellvvood; “and am not aware that I require any ll 
apology for intending to pass the season in town.” j' 

“/ never was a philosopher,” cried Mrs. Ethering- i 
ton; “but I hold, with Shakspeare, that | 

1 

It is for homely women to keep home; | 

They have their name thence.” j 

“Then no one, I fancy, will dispute either your own f 
or Lady Well wood’s claim to A1 macks and the Opera,” I 
said Miss Broadsden in a pacifying tone. j 

Pour le coup, Hatty, my dear,” cried Mrs. Ethe- 
rington, throwing down her screen, “I think you are | 
quite justified in flying from the roar of such a brute as 
that fox-hunting friend of Sir Henry’s; and I hope, af- j 
ter Easter, you will commission me to look out for a I 
house for you.” 

“ Sir Henry is very anxious to see the new picture- ! 
gallery roofed in before we leave Staffordshire,” said 1 
Henrietta. “ I have very little hope of getting awav ' 
till the end of May.” b y 

“ And can’t you leave him to scold his masons, and 
hsten to the cockneyisms of his clerk of the works, by 
himself? He will follow you when the business is over; 
and, en attendant^ you can spend a cheerful month with 
Lady Mandeville.” 

“ I uiight do that,” mused Henrietta. 

“ It is so detestable to come to town late in the sea- 
son!” said the widow,— “just like beginning a novel 


MAINTENANCE. 


37 


by the second volume. We find people making love, 
or making spiteful faces, without understanding whyj 
■—■nobody takes the trouble to instruct one who has 
died, or been married, or ruined, before one’s arrival; 
what liaisons have been broken off, what lovers dis- 
carded — what partisans bought, sold, or exchanged. — I 
remember last year, soon after my journey from Paris, 
condoling with Lady Grunt on the death of her daugh- 
ter’s husband, when it was notorious to every one but 
myself that the fair widow was already engaged to Cap- 
tain Percy; and actually inquiring of the Dowager Du- 
chess of Sequence after her very particular friend and 

adherent old Lord<^ ” when “Oh! Mr. Dornton!” 

cried Mrs. Etherington, interrupting herself as the ex- 
quisite sauntered into the room, “ I am afraid you have 
had a bad run, since we see you back so early?” 

“Not a bad run, — only a bad fall,” drawled the 
Nimrod in the brocaded dressing-gown and Turkish 
slippers, throwing himself at full lengthen one of the 
divans of the boudoir. “Braddyll has been shampoo- 
ing me for the last hour, to ascertain how many of my 
bones are broken. I had him taught by Mahomet be- 
fore the commencement of the hunting season.” 

“ I trust no material injury?” inquired Letitia. 

“ Nothing beyond the reparation of a little goldbeat- 
er’s skin,” said the exquisite. “ A few drops of orange- 
flower water have set me to rights.” 

“ Then pray come and set Lady Wellwood to rights. 
Do you know she is bent on renouncing London, to set- 
tle down as the Lady Bountiful of the parish of Well- 
wood!” cried Mrs. Etherington. 

“Never heard of anything so monstrous!” cried 
Letitia. 

“.Has anything occurred to alter your ladyship’s 
view’s since last night?” — inquired Mr. Dornton of 
Henrietta, in an audible whisper. “ Pray remember 
that I only gave up my intended visit to Paris, encou- 
rao’ed by your promise to pass the season in town.” 

'‘‘Oh, Hatty, Hatty! you scandalous hypocrite,” 
cried Mrs. Etherington, holding up her finger, and 
laughing immoderately. 

‘‘Till the end of May, indeed,” continued the gen- 
tleman in the brocaded dressing-gown, “ I am obliged 

VoL. 1. 4 


38 


THE SEPARATE 


to remain with Sandys,* but I shall not forgive you, my 
dear Lady Wellwood, if you remain at Wellwood Ab- 
bey one day after the 25th.” 

“ After the picture-gallery is roofed in,” said Mrs. 
Etherington, significantly. 

“ Good morning. Sir Henry,” cried Miss Letitia 
Broadsden, who alone was sufficiently disengaged to 
notice the entrance of the Baronet. 

“Good morning,” replied he, with a general bow, 
and an air of displeased amazement on finding Mr. 
Dornton familiarly established in a spot which the cus- 
tom of the house preserved sacred from male intrusion, 
and which he never visited himself without an apology. 

“My dear Lady Wellwood! — pray command me ta 
turn that monster out of the room,” faltered the exqui- 
site. “Do you sanction his appearance in your bou- 
doir, in a hunting-coat smelling of horse, and with clay 
on his boots enough to form the foundation of a canal? 
— Horrible?” 

Lady Wellwood glanced with a scornful eye at the 
streaks of mud defiling her Tournay carpet j Sir Henry, 
with equal contempt at the perfumed coxcomb defiling 
her ladyship’s silken ottoman. 

“I intended only to acquaint you,” said he, calmly, 
to Henrietta, “that Sandys, Allstone, and myself have 
promised to dine and sleep at Shoreham. The hounds 
meet to-morrow at Shoreham Thorns, and we wish to be 
on the spot. Dornton, do you accompany usP — You 
left the field before Lord Shoreham came up with his 
invitation.” 

“Thank you, — noj — I intend to give myself a day’s 
respite after my fall. If I left the hunting field to yoit^ 
my dear fellow, oblige me by leaving the field here tome.” 

“We will take great care of you, Mr. Dornton,” 
said Mrs. Etherington. 

“We will take great care of you, Mr. Dornton,” 
echoed the toady. 

“We will take great care of you,” looked Lady 
Wellwood; but she smiled, and said nothing. 

“And now, having received my Majesty’s reply 
won’t you release us from your boots?” inquired Dorn- 
ton, after murmuring his thanks to his female com- 
panions. 

Sir Henry made an awkward exit. There is nothing 


MAINTENANCE. 


39 

more irritating than to be compelled to take a jest as a 
jest, which we are inclined to resent in earnest. Miss 
Rodney was the only person who rose to shake hands 
with the departing Baronet. She observed that his 
touch was deathly cold, and his lips were white with 
rage, as he bade her a smiling farewell. 


CHAPTER VI, 


She had been ill brought up, and was born l)ilious. 

Byron. 

Arabella was not much surprised to observe, when 
her brother returned fr^m Shoreham Castle on the fol- 
lowing day, that his eyes were hollow and his lips fe- 
-verislij but it afforded her some satisfaction to see* that 
Henrietta did not appear in much better spirits. Is it 
hardness of heart, or is It mere levity that prompts us 
to the perpetration of those trifling injuries which, when 
estimated by their power to wound the feelings of 
others, form important links in the chain of existence? 
— Or, is it TEMPER? — that staple commodity in the great 
exchange of life, — that moral constitution whose ailments 
and infirmities exceed the most troublesome disease of 
physical nature I 

Henrietta was a spoiled child j — ^liad never been 
taught the duty of contributing to the happiness of 
others; — had found Lady Mandeville’s affections amply 
secured by her pretty face, her gt’aceful air, her showy 
accomplishments. From her childhood she had been 
incessantly reminded by her aunt of her own “ indepen- 
dence:’^ as if any human creature — royal, gentle, or sim- 
ple, could be fairly pronounced independent; — as if 
wealth and station, important as they are, could form a 
defence against the irritabilities of sickness, and the loss 
or lack of the sympathies and good-vvill of our kind! — 


40 


THE SEPARATE * 


and never instructed her pupil to conciliate. The beau- i 
tiful heiress was reared in all the petulance and mean- j 
ness of intense egotism. ^ 1 

Even amid the early raptures of his attachment, Sir j 
Henry had, in some degree, recognised the fault origi- | 
nally pointed out by Miss Rodney to his notice. Too J 

much in love, however, to perceive that the error pro- j| 

ceeded from want of principle, (even the primal principle ji 

of duty towards her neighbour,) he whispered to himself !! 

that the fair creature of his affections had been petted ii 

into waywardness by her aunt, and that when removed | 

to the cheering and wholesome influence of a country i 

life, she would become as amiable as she was attractive, j 

Nay, he even fancied it would be a delightful task to 1 

contribute to the perfection ment of so gifted, so heaven- 
ly a being! 

But there is nothing more difficult, nothing more ' 

perplexing, than to insinuate to persons wrapt up in the j 

consciousness of their own merits, a hint of error or | 

deficiency. From the first months of his domestication 
with his wife at Well wood Abbey, Sir Henry had in- 
tended, had longed, to commence his little system of 
tender remonstrance; but the slightest insinuation of a 
difference of opinion was sufficient to fan the embers of 
Henrietta’s distemperMure into a conflagration. The 
blaze was not strong, indeed; for the lady had always 
been accustomed to find a fit of wilfulness, or of affected 
despondency, more available and becoming than one of 
hasty anger. But she was tolerably expert in those 
piquant flippancies of speech which harass the enemy 
like a straggling fire; and could contrive, when it suit- 
ed her purpose, to make herself as disagreeable as if 
her face had not been that of a cherub, or her voice se- 
raphic. 

“A woman,” quoth La Bruyere, “must be charm- 
ing indeed, \yhose husband does not repent, ten times a 
day, that he is a married man.” Sir flenry Well wood 
would have scoffed at the axiom. The “idol of his 
soul” was still an idol; although, like the votaries of old, 
he had managed to discover that it was not wholly 
formed of precious metals; that its feet were of clay! 

He still fancied himself the happiest of mortals; parti- 
cularly when Henrietta, in her best looks and spirits. 


MAINTENANCE. 


41 


riding by his side through the Wellwood planta- 
tions, listening to the project of his intended improve- 
ments; — or seated in her boudoir sketching designs and 
modelling plans for his two new lodges. Sometimes 
after dinner she would busy herself with her. guitar, 
and insist on his attempting a second to her Italian not- 
turno; sometimes she persuaded him to lend her his arm 
towards the village, to asist in executing that easy work 
of benevolence, the deplenishment of her silken purse. 
At such moments she was indeed enchanting; — and the 
fascinate<l Wellwood was quite willing to echo the cho- 
rus of Mrs. Delafield’s visiters, that he had ‘‘drawn a 
prize.” 

But the sands of life are not formed exclusively of 
diamond sparks. Flint and granite mingle in the con- 
tents of the hourglass; and Sir Henry often found him- 
self required to listen to fractious complaints of old 
Roddington’s innovations, of Lawford’s negligence — of 
roses that would not blow at the gardener’s bidding — of 
London booksellers, who would not send down the new 
novels in proper time, — of old women who refused to 
be cured of their rheumatism, and young ones who de- 
clined becoming scholars at her platting school. His 
own misdemeanors, too, were frequent and unpardon- 
able. He had a knack of carrying off the very volume 
she was reading, — of losing her place, and leaving his 
own marked by leaving the unfortunate book sprawling 
upon its face on the table, like a drunkard on the ground. 
He often kept her waiting five minutes for her ride, or 
twenty for dinner; would stop and detain her in their 
walks, while he corrected the practical blunders of some 
superannuated hedger and ditcher; had a trick of whip- 
ping off the thistle-tops while driving her in the girden 
chaTr, to the imminent indignation of her ponies; vvas 
sometimes seen to nod after dinner, when the morning’s 
run had been a good one; and had an opinion of his own 
in politics, which precisely reversed those of Lady 
Mandeville and her coterie. — In a word, he ^yas often 
very “tiresome!” and whenever the fair Henrietta was 
excited into pronouncing that sentence on his proceed- 
ings, it was a signal for ill-humour for the remainder of 
the day; or rather till the spoiled child would conde- 
4 * 


42 


THE SEPARATE 


scend to be coaxed into a more satisfactory mood of 
mind. 

All this could be endured by a man of forbearing dis- 
position and strong sense, in favour of a young and 
lovely woman who had preferred him to fifty admirers, j 
and still professed an unlimited attachment towards j 
him. But he had no patience with the coldness of her i 
demeanour towards Miss Rodney, for whom he liad be- ! 
spoken her kindness in terms almost affecting, and | 
whose humiliated position in the world demanded deli- j 
cacy and consideration^ nor with her rudeness to his i 
friend, — his real friend, — his good friend Tom Allstone^ j 
whom he had pointed out to her regard as one whose ' 
kindness had been most valuable and important to him, j 
before the sudden decease of an elder brother placed ! 
him in possession of the Wei I wood estates. But as 
these were the two persons he most prized on earth, 
they were selected by Lady Wei I wood’s peevish and i 
jealous temper, as the means of inflicting punishment | 
on her husband. Not that she really wished to give him ! 
pain, or really disliked Arabella; but she was idle, — ; 

frivolous, — “ servile to all the skyey influences” of a i 
rainy or sultry day; .and delighted in finding a con- i 
ductor to carry off the electric fluid of perverseness en- 
gendered by a bad digestion and ill-regulated mind. 

Unfortunately, Sir Harry had no one with whom he 
could confer on the subject of his grievances. Though 
mistrusting the judiciousness of his own mode of ma- 
nagement, he had no opinion from which to derive a 
better system;— he was apprehensive of exciting Ara- 
bella’s ill-opinion of her sister-in-law by an avowal of 
his vexation, and still more afraid of exposing his own 
ears to the sarcasms likely to be wrung from Torn All- 
stone’s lips on the flights and fancies of fashionable la- 
dies. Obliged to brood over his afflictions during his 
ride homewards from Shoreham Castle, he had the sa- 
tisfaction of reflecting, that he might thank his own es- 
pecial invitation for the pleasure of Mr. Dornton’s com- 
pany at the Abbey; and of anticipating that, for a week 
to come, Henrietta would find, in the pernicious coun- 
sels of Mrs. Etherington and the base incense of her 
toady, ample incitement to farther conti’ariety. He saw 
that he had eight miserable days before him ! 


MAINTENANCE. 


43 


So engrossed indeed was the injured baronet by these 
contemplations, that he was unaware he had any thing 
else before him; when, suddenly startled from his reve- 
rie by an affected laugh, and the echo of three varieties 
of giggle and titter, he found himself in a lane leading 
from the Abbey pheasantries to the house; and on the 
point of running against her ladyship’s pony-chair, (in 
which she was driven by Mr. Dornton, attired in a pink 
silk waist-coat, white kid gloves, and frieze wrap-ras- 
cal) — while Mrs. Etherington and Letitia picked their 
dainty way along the bank. They all appeared exceed- 
ingly merry, and indulged themselves in a thousand 
biting jests on his abstraction. 

At dinner, matters were still worse. Lady Well- 
wood, who had taken counsel with Mrs. Etherington 
concerning her husband’s barbarity in the matter ol the 
dog, and absurdity in the matter of the dandy, was now 
resolved to inflict a signal chastisement on him, with a 
view to secure herself from farther ill-usage; and ac- 
cordingly commenced a most ostensible flirtation with 
Mr. Dornton. Sir Henry was fortunately still unaware 
that, during his absence, the amiable quartette had been 
amusing itself by a series of petty impertinences to Ara- 
bella Rodney, such as were equally new, amazing, and 
contemptible in her eyes; but nothing could be more 
evident than the cutting insolence of his w'ife’s present 
demeanour towards his friend Allstone, and indecorous 
devotion to the brother of Lord Sandys. During the 
ceremonial of dinner, her ladyship had no ear save for 
the insipid nothings of the man whom she delighted to 
honour; and Mrs. Etherington had consequently the sa- 
tisfaction of seeing the man she delighted to torment, 
condemned to a martyrdom of jealous irritation. j 
' On retiring from the dessert-table, the two ladies and 
a half, (Lady Wellwood, Helena, and the toady) flew 
too-ether to the dressing-room of the former, to concoct 
n^v schemes for bringing the rebellious husband to his 
senses, or driving him out of them. It required, how- 
ever, all the malice of the disappointed Mrs. Ethering- 
ton to keep her pupil up to the mark. Henrietta, self- 
convicted and uneasy, might not have found courage to 
persist in rendering her husband unhappy, had not a 
strong case been laid before her of the wretchedness 


44 


THE SEPARATE 


awaiting her future life, should she permit Miss Rodney ; 
to retain a paramount ascendency over him^ or allow | 
him to possess a paramount ascendency over herself. j 
She was asked again and again, whether she chose to | 
be a slave, — the slave of her husband’s sister^ — and of [ 
course replied by an indignant “No!” I 

It was not “no!” however, that she answered, an ! 

hour or two afterwards, in reply to Mr. Dornton’s re- | 

quest to hear her harp, — her guitar, — her charming j 

voice? — While he lounged at full length on a sofa near | 

the instrument, she favoured him again and again with | 

Sir Henry’s pet airs. Sir Henry’s pet songs, and every | 

melodious favourite hitherto reserved to grace those ^ 

evenings sacred to the sentimental domesticity of home. j 

It was wormwood to the provoked husband, as he sat ! 

taming down his chafed spirit into the meditative so- 
brieties of a game of chess with Tom Allstone, to hear j 

her lend peculiar pathos to some tender phrase which i 

he had been apt to believe exclusively addressed to I 

himself^ or dwell on some soft allusion which had al- j 

ways before been made the interpreter of her sympathy j 

with that “soul” of which she was the “idol.” At j 

every melting close, ejaculations of “charming!” — ^ 

“exquisite!” — burst from the lips of the recumbent 
Dorn ton; and were probably as excruciating to the ears 
of the baited husband, as in the ears of the lady of the 
Abbey, was a sort of half howl, half whine, which sud- 
denly issued from those of Tom Allstone, — forming an 
involuntary response to a minor chord terminating one 
of Henrietta’s choicest Bayleyisms. It was just the lu- 
dicrous cry that dogs occasionally utter under the ex- 
citement of music or moonshine; and naturally provoked 
a shout of laughter from every one present. Even the 
lounging ennuye was taken by storm, and became guilty 
of an unrefined “ha, ha, ha!” — 

Lady Well wood was inexpressibly offended. It was 
in vain that Tom apologized for his howl, like Cervetto 
to Garrick for his yawn during the mighty Roscius’s 
performance of Hamlet— “ Pardon, Monsieur!— me al- 
ways do so ven me ver’ much please!” — Her ladyship 
bit her lips with vexation, and uttered something in a 
loud aside to Mr. Dornton, concerning the necessity of 
confining such animals to the stable-yard; while Mrs. 


MAINTENANCE* 


45 


Ethenngton, by way of covering the general confusion, 
seated herself cheerfully at the piano, and favoured 
them with the lively French vaudeville, 


Tu t’en r6pentiras, Colin, tu t’en repentiras! 
Oui, si tu prends une femme, Colin, 

Tu t’en r^pentiras ! 


CHAPTER VII. 


A fop who admires his person in a glass, soon enters into a resolution of 
making his fortune by it; not questioning but every woman that falls in 
his way will do him as much justice as he does himself. When an heiress 
sees a man throwing particular glances into his ogle, or talking loud with- 
in her hearing, she ought to look to herself. 

Addisok. 

No jealous person is ever conscious of the distemper. 
Sir Henry Wellwood stood, in his own opinion, as the 
. most confiding and easy of husbands^ and had even pro- 
mised himself on his wedding-day, that no trivial cir- 
cumstance or accidental indiscretion on the part of his 
beloved Henrietta, should ever induce him to betray 
that susceptibility of feeling by which he had seen so 
many other men render themselves otFensive or ridicu- 
lous. On the present occasion, he felt satisfied that 
his vexations arose less from jealous excitement than 
from indignation at being set at naught, and degraded 
by the deliberate insults of his wife. 

He bore his fate in silence for three whole days. 
He saw her set off, morning after morning, to walk 
with Mr. Dornton in the Abbey shrubberies; and over- 
come her natural indolence, evening after evening, to 
copy out for him in a little finical album which formed 
part of his travelling paraphernalia, every “’Loved of 
my soul!” and “ Take back thy heart!” which had eli^ 
cited his applause when graced by her melodious repe- ' 
tition; and, at length, even heard her offer him the gift 
of a “ beautiful little Italian greyhound, an old favourite 


46 


THE SEPARATE 


of hers, which had just been sent away from the Abbey 
as an intruder.’’ Poor Well wood attempted to screen 
his uneasiness by directing his own attentions to Helena 
Etherington, but the little widow was busily engaged 
in trying to captivate those of Lord Sandys; and he j 
found himself eventually turned over to Miss Letitia | 
Broadsden, and cutting the ridiculous figure of pairing i 
off with the bore, or butt, of the party. Odious as it | 
was to him to listen to her sycophancies, it was ten j 
times worse to picture the sneer with which he fancied | 
himself regarded by Dornton and his brother^ and to I 
perceive the irrepressible twinklings of humour which ! 
irradiated Tom Allstone’s laughter-loving eyes, as he ! 
watched the manoeuvres of the group. But, on the | 
fourth day, his sufferings became insupportable^ and on | 
returning home from the sports of the morning, he flew | 
to Arabella’s dressing-room to make a clear breast of 
his grievances, and demand her advice and commisera- | 
tion. i 

It must be owned that he was fortunate, in a rnunsel- 
lor. Arabella, though several years his junior, and ac- i 
customed to look up to him with as much admiration as i 
affection, had studied his character with that shrewd- ! 
ness of observation which in a sister is never blinded by i 
the partialities of the heart. She knew all his foibles, 1 
while she honoured his virtues; and was careful on the 1 
present occasion to avoid magnifying his griefs, by treat- j 
ing them with either too much or too little attention, — i 
by receiving his complaints either as absolute jest or ab- I 
solute earnest. She listened very calmly; and very I 
calmly assured him that, by making his indignation ap- j 
parent to the guilty parties, he would only gratify their j 
own intentions; while by a grave steadiness of demean- j 
our towards his wife, he might at once defeat the con- 
sequences of Mrs. Etherington’s suggestions and of her 
own girlish waywardness. Grieved as she was to see 
her brother look so ill, and speak so despondingly of his 
domestic position, Miss Rodney was careful not to en- 
courage his despair by any expression of sympathy. 

Cheered by her kind-hearted mode of depreciating 
the importance and prophesying the speedy termination 
of Lady Well wood’s fit of perversity, he was quitting 
her room in considerable elation of spirits, with his 


MAINTENANCE. 


47 


care-worn countenance irradiated by a smile, when He- 
lena Etherington and Henrietta, who had been prac- 
tising duets together in the music-room, and intermin- 
gling their harmonious studies with a running commen- 
tary on the insupportableness of cross husbands, and 
the glory of breaking in a stubborn temper, — came full 
upon him in the corridor. Conscious and startled, he 
bowed and skulked guiltily away^ leaving Mrs. Ethe- 
rington to point out to the disgust of his wife the secret 
understanding and privy council existing between him- 
self and Arabella, where all her own proceedings were 
subjected to investigation and condemnation. Can it 
be doubted that on this hint. Lady Wellwood made her 
appearance for the evening arrayed in all her usual 
smiles for Mr. Dornton, — more, than all her usual un- 
graciousness towards Miss Rodney? She was at least 
determined to render Sir Henry and his sister as un 
comfortable as herself. Alas! how tormenting was it 
to the lover-husband, to gaze on the loveliness of her 
looks, while noting the unloveliness of her mind and 
manners! — 

Miss Rodney had not, however, much leisure to 
smart under her ladyship’s strictures and implications. 
She was engrossed by Mr. Allstone’s account of a visit 
lie had paid to a volcanic island on the Sicilian coast 
during his recent Mediterranean tour, in company with 
a party of English dandies, who were yachting in the 
same direction. At first, Tom’s rambling notes were 
exclusively intended for the amusement of one who, he 
perceived, was an object of spite to the other ladies of 
the party; but encouraged by the applause with which 
his graphic details were received by Lord Sandys (who, 
although a fox-hunter was a remarkably intelligent, 
lively, amuseable young man) he proceeded to portray 
with such admirable strokes of humour the characters 
of the fresh-water sailors, lisping out their slang, or af- 
fecting scientific ardour in a tone half-yawn half-snore, 
that even the toady deserted the anti-Allstone party, 
and surrendered herself for once to the luxury of a 
genuine laugh. Lady Wellwood swelled with indigna- 
tion: — not only to find the detestable Tom the hero of 
the hour, but because the very nature of his triumph 
rendered it impossible to crush him by the supercilious 


48 


THE SEPAllATE 


hauteur which the merry mood of his auditors encou- 
raged him to despise. Even Dornton listened and ap- 
plauded. So rarely does providence 

the giflie gie us 

To see ourselves as others see us, 

that he had not the least conception his friend and par- 
tisan in the pink satin dress, was disposed to resent 
Mr. Allstone’s sketch of dandy inanity, as a personal 
attack on himself. It never occurred to him that there 
was a family resemblance between the Sir Roger Ram- 
pion, who lisped about 

Gunth, dwumth, twumpeth, blunderbutheth, and thunder, 

in an accent like the chirrup of a sparrow; or the Colo- 
nel Merivale who carried two blue and gold enamel wa- 
tering-pots throughout the difficulties of peninsular cam- 
paigns, to sprinkle his snuff with black and green tea! 
But while the double refined ennuye condescended to 
join in the general laugh directed against his caste^ he 
was not unmindful of his main object; and exonerated 
himself by lisping “cAe hestia!^^ in an undertone, to 
Lady Wellwood, at the termination of Allstone’s nar- 
rative. Nothing could be more marked than his devo- 
tion to Henrietta, nothing more manifest than his pre- 
tensions to her favour, nothing more plain than his sa- 
tisfaction at the uneasiness of his friend, her husband. 
Her ladyship had no reason to doubt that he had lost 
his heart, such as it was, during his short visit to the 
Abbey. 

And so indeed he had; and all his present airs and 
exaggerated affectation were directed towards the cap- 
tivation of the lady of his thoughts. But that was not 
the lady of Sir Henry Wellwood. Dornton was no 
libertine; he was worse, — a cold, hard, calculating 
egotist; preferring the comforts and convenience of his 
own little finger before all the charms of Venus and her 
train of nymphs. Mrs. Etherington’s attack upon the 
liberty of his brother had in truth induced him to make 
inquiries concerning the nature of her own attractions; 
and finding them to consist in a pretty face and flighty 
air of fashion (which were a matter of indifference to 


MAINTENANCE. 


49 


him) and a jointure of two thousand a-year (which was 
a matter of considerable importance both to him and 
his creditors) he fell desperately in lovej and formed as 
fierce a determination to 

take his stand 

On the rich widow’s jointured land, 

and make Helena Etherington his own before he quitted 
the Abbey, as she had herself conceived with regard to 
the^ conquest of Lord Sandys. Frederick Dornton, 
amid all his fiddle-faddle foppishness, united the hard 
beak of the macaw with its gaudy plumage. With 
quite as bad a heart and principles as Mrs. Ethering- 
ton, he had a much better head 5 and, instead of making 
his advances in a straight line, according to her own 
mode of attack upon his brother, adopted that curious 
species of Irish ordinance which is said to shoot round 
a corner. He began by making love to her friend, in 
order that Helena might end by falling in love with 
himself. 

Unwittingly, too. Miss Broadsden lent her aid to- 
wards the fartherance of his project. Aware that Mrs. 
Etherington’s marriage would be the end of her toady- 
hood, that with a husband to be teased by or tease, she 
would stand in no need of a domestic friend to quarrel 
with on rainy days, Lbtitia declared war on Lord San- 
dys from the moment she detected the favourable views 
entertained towards him by her patroness^ and spared 
no pains in illustrating the boorishness of his manners 
and his distaste for female society, by incessant compa- 
' rison with the refinement of his younger brother, — the 
darling of half the coteries of May-Fair. But Miss 
Broadsden, who had been so long erased from the mar- 
rying list, and who grounded her interested specula- 
tions chie% on the weakness of her own sex, had quite 
forgotten that the very name of younger brother cover- 
eth a multitude of virtues; and all her florid admiration 
of “Mr. Dornton’s distinguished air,” and “Mr.* 
Dorn ton’s fascinating address,” would have been la- 
vished in vain, had she not concluded the catalogue of 
his charms with a remark on his unhappy passion for 
the lady of the Abbey. 

VoL. I. 


5 


50 


THE SEPARATE 


This was decisive. Mrs. Etherington belonged to 
that most virulent class of coquettes, who have not half 
so much enjoyment in the triumph of their own charms 
as in molesting the attachments of others. Seldom, in- 
deed, does coquetry manifest itself in the character of 
an English woman combined with the playful and joy- 
ous delirium of vanity, which forms its basis in the spi- 
rit of a fair Parisian. The females of our own country 
are so little exposed to those attentions of gallantry 
which intoxicate the mind of French women of every 
degree, that among ourselves coquetry commonly springs 
from a perverted nature; — with us it is not an ignis fa- 
tuus, but a scorching and perilous flame, — it is not a 
lizard, but a scorpion,- — it is not the appetite for selfish 
pleasure, but “the dear delight of giving pain.”" 

Mrs. Etherington’s beloved Hatty had robbed her of 
Well wood Abbey and its proprietor, and she deter- 
mined to take her revenge on all parties by appropri- 
ating to herself the proprietor of the brocaded dressing 
gown and pet mustachios; as well as by hatching a 
whole brood of mischiefs between Sir Henry and his 
wife. Even had she been aware of the extent of the un- 
paid bill in which the former article still remained en- 
rolled, and the prodigious claims existing on the latter 
among tlie flirts (married and single) of the day, it 
would have made little difference in her projects. She 
had no more intention of committing herself by a mar- 
riage with the honourable Frederick, than with Tom 
Allstone’s groom; but simply intended to inveigle him 
from Henrietta’s feet to her own, and leave him there,, 
fairly floored, for the amusement of society. The 
amiable couple were admirably matched, — ^coquette 
against coquet. — But in such villanous strategy, a man 
has always the advantage; he possesses presence of 
mind, while his opponent has only presence of heart. 

Even Mrs. Etherington’s views on Lord Sandys 
were secondary to her desire of mortifying the trium- 
phant Lady Wellwood. Assisted by Letitia’s perspi- 
cacity, she had discovered the hopelessness of be- 
sieging the affections of an individual whom man de- 
lighted not, nor woman either, so long as a horse, 
dog, or fox was within reach. At best, he was but a 
young and titled Tom Allstone, a man who would have 


1 


MAINTENANCE. 5i 

been voted a bear, had he not been qualified to vote as 
I n peer. 

I Without the slightest suspicion that she was herself 
entangled in a springe, she accordingly began to spread 
her nets for Frederick Dornton; and satisfied of the su- 
perior charm of her gay French songs, when opposed to 
Lady Wei I wood’s sentimentalisms, — and the perfection 
of her own Parisian lightness of foot in the galoppe, 
when contrasted with Henrietta’s sleepy grace, she pro- 
moted music and dancing during the evening; and by 
the familiarities thus ensured between the dandy and 
the pretended object of his homage, had the comfort of 
sending Sir Henry to bed with an aching heart and 
throbbing temples. 

Before the party met again at breakfast, however, it 
was Henrietta’s heart that throbbed and temples that 
ached. She had weathered her first matrimonial stormy 
— had been informed that it was her husband’s pleasure 
she should not waltz with Mr. Dornton, nor prolong 
her tete-a-teie walks with him, nor decorate her hair 
with exotics of his selection from the conservatory! 
“ Her husband’s pleasure!” — Alas! from the moment 
that sentence is authoritatively introduced into the con- 
jugal dialogue, half the comfort of a married life is lost. 
When men begin to talk about their pleasure, it is plaiq 
that their happiness is at an end^ 


52 


THE SEPARATE 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Laughing satire bids the fairest for success ; the world is too proud to be 
foad of a serious tutor. 

Young. 

In this premature exercise of authority. Sir Henry 
acted injudiciously. Henrietta was the frivolous crea- 
ture of prosperity, vain, selfish, and artificial y but she 
was not destitute of generous impulses. Nature is an 
untireable benefactress. In spite of the coldness with 
which her benefits are received, the ingratitude with 
which they are defaced, she continues to lavish her 
good and perfect gifts. Amid all the entanglement of 
weeds defiling Lady Well wood’s neglected and uncul- 
tured mind, a flower or two still rose unheeded. 

Had her husband, instead of looking angry and talk- 
ing big, — instead of bringing forward his prerogative, 
and making a stnnd opon hi» rights, — simply appealed. { 
to her afiection, she would have given way in a minute. 
Had he merely whispered in his own “ idol of the soul”- 
ish tones: “Hatty! it gives me pain to see you encou- 
raging the pretensions of Frederick Dornton. Hatty! 
it gives me pain to see you wound the feelings of my 
poor gentle unoffending sister,” she would have been in 
nis arms in a moment, and probably in those of Miss 
Rodney the next. She was not hardened j and with such 
a nature tenderness prevails far more than violence. 
But if the truth must be owned, Well wood himself, al- 
though both an honourable and an honest man, was not 
altogether perfect. He was peremptory and opinion- 
ated. He had not been trained in the exercise of au- 
thorityj — he had been a mere Captain Wellwood, of the 
— th Hussars with five hundred per annum, (a person 
of no manner of importance to any human creature but 
the affectionate Arabella) till the attainment of his twen- 
ty-eighth year, — and was somewhat apprehensive of al- 
lowing his newly ac(|uired consec^uence to ^lip tfirougfi 


MAINTENANCE. 


53 


}iis fingers. He had not been long enough accustomed 
to the conjugation of “I will,” “Thou shalt,” to re- 
gard these verbs as mere auxiliaries, acquiring their va- 
lue from the participle they serve to animate. 

He was obstinate, too, as well as wilful; and having 
been at length incited to an act of despotism, was de- 
termined to prop the lath and plaster barrier he had 
erected with bulwarks of stone. Having prepared him- 
self for a woman’s war of words, for skirmishing and 
sharp-shooting on the part of Henrietta, he assumed a 
most heroic posture, and came down to breakfast, look- 
ing as dignified as Lord Mansfield in his marble wig, 
among the tombs of Westminster Abbey. 

Here, to his infinite surprise, he found the very Lady 
Wellwood he had left a raging Statira in her dressing- 
room, presiding over the distribution of the coffee, with 
a smiling face, arrayed in a morning cap, the pink ri- 
bands of which served to overpower the redness of her 
eyes. No one present would have guessed that any 
thing had occurred to discompose lier; and Sir Henry 
applied himself with an unanticipated appetite to his 
eggs and French rolls, full of Joyful amazement at her 
well-advised submission to his authority, and restora- 
tion to good humour. Poor man! — his blindness may 
be pardoned; — he was a husband of only six months’ 
date. 

It almost vexed him that he had not breakfasted ear- 
ly and gone to covert with Sandys^ and Allstone, in- 
stead of staying at home to scold his wife. But then 
Frederick Dornton, in pursuance of his own deep-laid 
projects, still pleaded his fall as an excuse for absent- 
ing himself from the field; and with all Sir Henry’s re- 
covered confidence in Lady AVellwood’s discretion, he 
could not quite venture to trust her to the fascinations 
of so dangerous a companion. , ,, , r 

Congratulate me,’' said he, kissing Arabella’s fore- 
head, as she rose and came forward to meet him in the 
course of the afternoon, from her favourite seat among 
the cedar trees that spread their vast branches from the 
Wellwood shrubberies to the lake below; “I have gone 
courageously and successfully through my first dispute 
with Henrietta!” 

I ryoice to hear it! With so many excellent qua- 


54 


THE SEPARATE 


lities, it is grievous to see her misled by such a weak, 
flimsy person as Mrs. Etherington.” 

“ I don’t fancy that woman possesses any real influ- 
ence over her mind. I have often warned Hatty against 
her flightiness, and she appeared on her guard. Be- 
sides, there are only two days unexpired of Mrs. Ethe- 
rington’s promised stay; and I have strictly forbidden 
Henrietta to prolong the invitation.” 

“ I doubt the wisdom of forbidding any thing strictly, 
where you have a generous nature to work on. You 
would have done well to leave Lady Well wood to grow 
weary of her friend 5 and better still, had you merely 
expressed your uneasiness, and appealed to her own 
heart. Depend on it, the answer would have been fa- 
vourable.” 

“Well, well! — the same end has been accomplished 
by different means. You must have observed at break- 
fast, how little Lady Well wood found to say to that 
jackanapes Dornton; and how much and kindly she 
talked to Allstone and yourself.” 

“I do not quite like such violent transitions,” said 
Miss Rodney, mildly. “ I should have been better 
satisfied with some faint grumbling of the departing 
storm. 

“Ay, ay! You ladies will never sanction the exer- 
cise of authority over other women; you unite, at least, 
in supporting the prerogative of the sex. But be as- 
sured that, with a being so capricious and obstinate as 
Henrietta, a little firmness is absolutely necessary.” 

“Between two persons so capricious as Lady Well- 
wood and so obstinate as her husband! Nay! dear 
Harry-— be not angry!— but, as a stander-by, believe 
me I can best judge the chances oV the game. You are 
too much interested in the stakes to be a dispassionate 
observer.” 

“Well, then, — as a stander-by: — what likelihood 
have I of check-mating my queen?” 

“ No likelihood, but a certainty; — talk to her with 
all the candour, and half the eloquence, and a quarter 
of the forbearance you used formerly, to employ in 
weaning me from my girlish follies, and you “ have her 
on the hip.” Henrietta will prove even a more docile 
disciple than myself. But tighten the curb too rough- 


MAINTENANCE. 55 

ly, and the generous steed will rear and throw you 
over.” 

“ If you will borrow your similes from Allstone, 
Bella, let them be more technical. Mean while, I shall 
be able to prove to you that I am a better hand in the 
manege than you imagine.” 

During the two following days, Sir Henry’s opinion 
on the subject remained uncontroverted. Lady Well- 
wood was all gentleness, all decorum; she neither pur- 
sued her flirtation with the dandy nor her brusquerie 
with Allstone; endured his laugh without wincing; and 
heard Mrs. Etherington announce her departure for 
tovvn for the following Thursday, without any renewal 
of her invitation. Even when Frederick Dornton sud- 
denly explained the necessity he was under of taking 
leave on the day preceding, and what is termed “ run- 
ning up to town,” for the arrangement of some impor- 
tant ballot at one of his clubs, she listened with a se- 
rene smile, which Sir Henry hailed as announcing a re- 
turn of happy days, after the departure of his three 
unsatisfactory guests. With his friends Allstone and 
Sandys as the companions of his morning sports, Ara- 
bella as the partner of his friendship, and Henrietta as 
the object of his unremitting adoration, as the idol of 
his soul,” he felt assured that the Abbey was about to 
reassume the Eden-like aspect of the preceding autumn. 
He even managed to be all graciousness to Mrs. Ethe- 
rington, and courtesy to Miss Letitia Broadsden, 
during the last four and twenty hours they were ever 
likely to pass under his roof. The deep-set eyes of the 
latter twinkled cunningly on either side her long nose, 
as she noticed the increasing urbat>ity of his humour. 

It had been arranged that Mrs. Etherington, instead 
of adopting the usual custom of guests departing after 
an early breakfast, should await the arrival of the post; 
and the gentlemen of the party gladly availed them- 
selves of her polite request, that her delay might be no 
restraint in detaining them from their daily sport. 
They wished her a pleasant journey when she retired 
to rest the preceding night; and were all four off to the 
rendezvous de chasse by daybreak. It was the decree 
of the Fates that the hounds should meet that day at 
Kingscote Mill, full thirteen miles from the Abbey. 


gg the separate 

It was the will of the Fates also that all that morning 
should 


Through the hawthorn blow the cold wind 
While drizzly rain did fall! 


And it was through that drizzly rain, and across a stiff 
country, that Sir Henry and his tired hack found their 
way homewards towards evening — the horse meditating 
on an extra feed, the rider cogitating on the cheerful, 
happy fire-side that awaited him at the Abbey, now the 
widow, toady, and dandy were on their road to London, 
— and Henrietta herseff again. “ He whistled as he 
went for want of ” — not thought — but care. It is so 
delightful to feel a storm subsiding around usj to hear 
the blackbirds and thrushes waking up their tuneful 
snatches in the dripping shrubberies^ to breathe the 
freshened perfume of the sweet-brier bushes: — it is so 
delightful — so very delightful — to note returning sun- 
shine on the faces of those we love! 

Having entered the Abbey through the offices, the 
elated Baronet made his way to Lady Wei I wood’s 
dressing-room without meeting any of the servants; but 
on entering that Temple of the Graces, he was sur- 
prised to see that, instead of the disorder of the toilet 
usually prevalent after the sound of the dressing-bell, — 
instead of the sparkling fire and bright confusion of sa- 
tins, silks, and laces, — necklaces, ear-rings, and brace- 
lets, — which for the last ten days had encumbered its 
tables and chairs from six till seven o’clock, — all was 
cold, orderly, and solitary! The bright steel grate was 
carefully cleared out,j — the windows were still open to 
admit the chilly evening air, — the covers were installed 

on the furniture, — the what could it all mean? — 

He rang the bell to inquire; and, with admirable con- 
sistency, left the room before time had elapsed for a 
servant to obey the summons. 

“ Where is Lady Wellwood?” cried he to the but- 
ler, whom he crossed in the hall while hastening to- 
wards the boudoir frequented during the morning by 
the ladies of the Abbey. 

“Hav’n’t you had my lady’s letter, sir?” 

Where is Henrietta?” cried he, without pausing 


MAINTENANCE. 


57 


to reply to the man’s interrogation, but throwing open 
the door of the room where his sister was quietly seat- 
ed before her embroidery frame. 

“ Have you not received her letter ?” reiterated Ara- 
bella, without intending to annoy him. 

The agonized husband uttered some ejaculation con- 
cerning the letter, which it might not be decorous to 
transcribe. 

“Do not be alarmed!” replied Miss Rodney, mildly. 
..I ** Nothing is amiss 5 nothing important has occurred.— • 
![: Dady Wellwood ieft a letter on your library table to 
explain — ” 

^ “I don’t care about the letter. * Can’t you tell me 
I in one word where she is?” 

* “Somewhere about Litchfield, by this time 5— but I 
j fancy she will not sleep on the road ” — 

! “Litchfield! — the road! — Arabella, what do you 

mean?” 

' “Only that — ” 

-i “Has she, — can it be possible that she has quitted 

the Abbey?” 

: “ Surely you are aware that—” 

‘‘Arabella! Arabella! did she — go 
i “Oh! dear, no! Why should you imagine such a 
I thing? But her letter will explain the whole business; 

; I will go and fetch it” 

“D — n the letter!” cried Sir Henry, falling into a 
chair. “ Tell me all, — tell me the worst. I can bear 
it — I have courage for any thing.” 
i “ A great deal of courage, perhaps,” said Miss Rod- 
I; ney; “ but certainly very little patience. One would 
fancy you thought Lady Wellwood had eloped.” 

. “Did you not just now imply — ” 

1 “I implied nothing. Stop, stop, dear Harry! and 
i let me tell you the whole affair. Just as Mrs. Ethe-; 

I rington was taking leave of us, the Tiondon post brought 
a letter to Henrietta from Lady Mandeville, informing 
i her she was very seriously indisposed, and imploring 
her to lose no time in coming to London.” 

; ^‘Lady Mandeville?' — how strange!” 

I “Lady Wellwood was anxious to send for post- 
horses without a moment’s delay. But Mrs. Ethering- 
ton would not hear of her performing the journey alone; 


58 


THE SEPARATE MAINTENANCE. 


nor would Henrietta delay it for six or eight hours, for 
the chance of your consenting to accompany her.” 

“ And so, she actually set oflf with tliat odious wo- 
man?” 

Those odious women, you mean? For notwith- 
standing the inconvenience of travelling three in a 
britscka on a rainy day, Miss Broad sden was necessari- 
ly of the party. She insinuated to me a hint that I 
might try and prevail on them to leave her at the Ab- 
bey, in order that she might accompany me to towm at 
some future time^ but 1 had no inclination to second 
the motion. Lawford was therefore despatched by 
some public conveyance, and Henrietta accompanied 
her friends.” 

“Her friends! — ” 

“ Surely it was better than that she should attempt ' 
such a journey protected only by her servants? — ” 

“And Dornton taking his departure so opportunely 
yesterday evening!” 

His departure could have nothing to do with Hen- 
rietta’s. Till this morning, she did not entertain the 
slightest suspicion of Lady Mandeville’s illness.” 

“Illness? — Bella, Bella!- — it is all a subterfuge. 
Rely on it, nothing is the matter with the old woman. 

It is a deep-laid scheme between Lady Well wood and 
her advisers; — it is a vile conspiracy to create dissen- 
sion between me and my wife.” 

“At present, you have no grounds for such an opi- 
nion,” said Miss Rodney. “At present—” 

But it was useless to argue with him!— Poor Sir 
Hpry was traversing the room with steps that left no- 
thing audible but the tramp of his own hunting-boots. 
Arabella was almost angry with him for allowing him- 
self to be thus furiously excited by the mere effects of 
surmise; but she was not angry, she was truly and deep- 
ly grieved, when she saw him suddenly stop short, and 
covering his face with his hands, sink heavily on the 
nearest chair. She knew that he was weeping, yet 
dared not remonstrate with his tears.— Poor man!— 
After all, it was nothing but the sight of one of her 
gloves, lying beside the book he had been reading the 

preceding night, which moved him so strongly. ^Or 

was it— was it a presentiment that the mistress of the 
glove would enter that room no more?— 


MAINTENANCE. 


59 


CHAPTER IX. 


■Small causes are enough to make a man uneasy when great ones are not 
in the way; for want of a block, he will stumble at a straw.. 

Swift. 

“ A FAITHFUL friend ” — says Solomon — but the pro- 
verb is trite, and Tom Allstone’s meats need no illus- 
tration ! 

There is no point, indeed, by which faithful friendship 
makes itself more valuable to its votaries, than by lend- 
ing itself pliantly, without fuss or form, to remedy the 
trivial contrarieties of life. The heroic old passion that 
stalks in buskins is rarely called upon to verify its large 
protestations; and it were to be wished that the free- 
and-easy, hand-and-glove sort of fellowship of modern 
times, would more frequently exemplify its superiority 
by a patient toleration of procrastinated dinners, or a 
good-natured endurance of our squalling children, or 
smoky drawing-rooms. 

No sooner did Allstone, summoned by Arabella’s in- 
terference, make himself acquainted with the matrimo- 
nial dilemma of his friend, than he was ready with ad- 
vice and co-operation. 

“ Follow them, my dear Harry/’ said he; “ do not 
give these people an opportunity for triumph, or time 
for farther cabals. You have a right to be alarmed for 
the state of poor dear Aunt Mandeville’s health;— fly 
to assist your wife in the task of nursing her.” 

“But Arabella, — Sandys, — yourselt! — How can I 
leave home?” 

“If you do not wish to expose Miss Rodney to the 
fatigues of a hasty journey, let her stay here; and / will 
rnana«-e to persuade Sandys he is wanted elsewhere, and 
we ca^ set oft* to-morrow morning. If, on the contrary, 

t VoL. I. ^ 


60 


THE SEPARATE 


she will consent to be your companion, I will do the 
honours of your house for a day or two; but for heaven’s 
sake, don’t let the forms of etiquette towards two good- 
for-nothing idle bachelors, like his lordship and myself, 
interfere with the more important arrangements of your 
affairs.” 

“You are always the best fellow in the world, Tom,” 
said Sir Henry, scarcely able to move his blanched lips. 
“Bella, love! — you had better remain at the Abbey; 
you are not strong enough for the scenes that probably 
await me on arriving in town.” 

“I shall see nothing of them; T shall go at once to 
my sister Delafield’s,” replied Miss Rodney, leaning 
affectionately over his shoulder; “ and I cannot allow 
you to go alone. Bo send for horses, and let us be 
off.” 

“To save time I can fake my own as far as Red- 
burne. But Lord Sandys — what will he think of us 
all?”— 

“That you are mad, indeed, if you attempt to sit 
down to dinner with that horror-struck face. Don’t 
wait, — go at once. We must understand that you are 
wild with impatience to get to Lady Mandeville’s sick- 
room. Those people have six hours the start of you. 
You must manage to overtake them, and make Lady 
Wei I wood enter town under your protection.” 

In pursuance of this sage advice, and acceptance of 
this satisfactory mode of arrangement. Sir Henry found 
himself, his sister, and his sorrows, travelling towards 
London at the rate of nine miles an hour, before the 
western sky had lost its last tinge of lurid vermilion. 

Mean while, the party in the britschka proceeded as 
uncomfortably on their way, as guilty consciences, 
heavy roads, and a mistling rain could make them. 
They were all three ruminative. Lady Wellwood sat I 
meditating on the effect her rash proceeding would pro- ! 
duce on her husband. Mrs. Etherington (who had 
originally suggested the letter to Aunt Mandeville, 
begging her to be very much indisposed, in order to af- 
ford a pretext to the most injured of nieces for a jour- 
ney to town) was still much in doubt whether her allure- 
ments had been as successful as she could wish in 
estranging the heart of Frederick Dornton froni’sir 


MAINTENANCE. 


61 


Henry Well wood’s wife, or whether her ladyship’s 
flight from the Abbey would be as offensive to the offend- 
ing husband as she could desire; while poor Letitia, 
whose neck was nearly dislocated by the position in 
which she was compelled to niche herself under the 
hood of the britschka, with the tricklings of a chilly 
rain oozing down her back, was lost, in envy of the 
lady’s maid, cozily established in the rumble beneath 
the footman’s umbrella! — Not Caliban writhing beneath 
Prospero’s inflictions, was ever half so cramped with 
pains and aches as the unhappy toady! 

Yet Miss Broadsden alone was in possession of a fact 
which would at once have cheered the current of her 
companions’ contemplations. She it was who had given 
private intelligence to Mr. Dornton, between which two 
turnpikes of the road it would be expedient for him to 
break down, so as to be stationed at the very inn at 
Lichfield where her patroness and Lady Wellwood had 
determined to dine and sleep; and though far the most 
vociferous of the three in the expression of her amaze- 
ment on perceiving him of the dressing gown, standing 
in examination of the barometer in the hall of the Green 
Dragon when they stepped from the carriage, she had 
been as fully prepared for the startling spectacle, as a 
theatrical Macbeth for the apparition of the “ blood- 
boultered Banquo,” which causes his knees to knock, 
and his wig to stand on end. Mr. Dornton’s explana- 
tion of the causes of his sojourn in so unsavoury a spot 
was soon given, and with Caesarian terseness. “ I set 
off from Wellwood last night, — broke down this morn- 
ing, — am here this evening.” And though he yawned 
out something purporting to be a self-gratulation on 
their unexpected arrival, he contrived to introduce a 
suspicion into the minds of both ladies, that he secret- 
ly longed to despatch them to the rival capital of the 
Bishop of Lichfield’s diocess. Nothing now remained, 
however, but to invite him to dinner; — a proposal 
which the Honourable Frederick accepted with as con- 
temptuous an air as if he had cherished the intention of 
eating his roast fowl alone, and paying for it by a draft 
on his own banker. 

It was amusing to see the creature seated with a su- 


62 


THE SEPARATE 


percilious smile on the hard black horse-hair sofa, af- 
lowing Henrietta and Helena to court him into good hu- 
mour. Although it was a real annoyance to the former 
to find him an inmate of the inn, and altbough for five 
minutes she reflected most uneasily on the untoward in- 
terpretation such an incident might bear in her hus- 
band’s opinion, yet having been in (ruth guiltless of all 
connivance in the affair, Lady Wetlwood soon reco- 
vered her spirits; and with that frivolous love of con- 
quest which nothing subdues in the mind of a coquette, 
rallied herself to surpass the lively sallies of Mrs. Ethe- 
rington, and to induce the languid Frederick to acknow- 
ledge that her presence could impart a charm even to 
the parlour of the Green Dragon. 

Thanks to the abundant cautions, hints, and repre- 
hensions forwarded by the fastidious guest to the culi- 
nary department, dinner was not served till nearly ten 
o’clock; and — while the individual in corduroys and 
cotton stockings, who excruciated Mr. Dornton by in- 
viting him to a red leather case of greasy bottles, con- 
taining portions of red lead, genuine toad-stool ketchup, 
and other condiments essential to the fried soles of ** the 
curious in fish sauce,"’ stood marvelling what sort of a 
creature the gentleman might be who was so very much 
more of a lady than the long-nosed Letitia, — the gaping 
and weary toady sat helping herself abundantly to sour 
sherry, from a dusty decanter and a wine glass which 
the waiter polished with a dirty cloth before her eyes. 
Still, with all the defects of the dinner, the blazing fire 
was cheering, and the oddities of the scene amusing. 
The horns of the mails, — the jangling of the bells, — 
the clamour after the chambermaid — the shuffling 
of the slip-shod waiter across the sandy hall, — the reek 
of remote punch and tobacco, — the evening papers 
brought in smelling of cheese, — all served to divert per- 
sons unaccustomed to the scene. The martyr-like at- 
titude of poor Dornton excited the irony of Mrs. Ethe- 
rington and the laughter of Henrietta; Letitia, after 
finishing her cruet ot sherry, grew as anecdotic as Ma- 
thews; tale succeeded tale; — and never, amid the ele- 
gant refinements of the Abbey, had any one of the par- 
ty been half so entertaining, or half so entertained. 


maintenance. 


63 


They were sitting^round the fire, with the greasy news- 
papers for screens, laughing heartily over their coffee, 
when the door was suddenly thrown open; — and in 
walked Sir Henry Well wood, and Miss Rodney! 


CHAPTER X. 


What an Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is ready to crack with im- 
patience. Who says this is improvident jealousy? My wife hath sent to 
him — the hour is fixed ! 

Merrv Wives of Windsor. 

It is not to be supposed that the gentle and right- 
minded Arabella had any taste for participation in such a 
scene. Ditt*ering in opinion from Tom Allstone respect- 
ing the eligibilities of a meeting on the road between 
her brother and his wife, she had quitted the Abbey 
with the belief and hope that they could not overtake 
Lady Wellvvood till she was fairly installed under the" 
protection of her aunt; and that she herself ran no 
-chance of being personally involved in a domestic 
squabble. 

Like some lover in a fairy-tale, cross-examining the 
wood-cutters by the road. Sir Henry had applied him- 
self to the waiters of every inn where they changed 
horses, to know if “they had seen a beautiful princess 
pass that way;” till at length, on driving into the court- 
yard of the "Green Dragon, he was struck by the sight 
of Mrs. Etherington’s carriage, from the panels of 
which the head ostler, illuminated during the operation 
by a stable-lantern hung upon a pitchfork, was busily 
employed in scraping off both mud and varnish. Like 
Duke Aranza’s Juliana, the caitift* 

“Lightened lus labours with a cheerful song?” 

addressing his tender apostrophes in a voice that would 
have deafened a storm in the Bay of Biscay, to the hind 
6 * 


64 


THE SEPARATE 


wheel of the carriage which he was twirling beneath 
his mop — 

“ May thoy lot in loife be *oppy, hundistarb’d by thoughts o’" tne; 

The God as shilters hinnercence — 

(Dorn the wheel ! — it’s as con-trairy as a hooman) 

thoy gord and gold shall be.’* j 

“Where is tlie party to whom that carriage belongs, 
fellow?” interrupted Sir Henry, from the chariot win- 
dow. 

“ I never wants to zee thee more, thof I be slill thoy friend!”' 

sang the ostlerj — and it was some moments before he 
could intelligibly explain to his interrogator, that “ the 
ladies wot belonged to the bridgy” (for the carriage was 
of course the noun-substantive in the ostler’s mind) “ was 
a dining in the parlour along wi’ the young gemman wot 
belonged to the brown calash.” 

“Open the door!” cried Sir Henry to his footman, 
suiting an action to the word, which certainly would 
have fractured his knee-pan, did not that providence 
which watches over drunken men, deign sometimes to 
look after men in a passion. He was in the stable -yard 
in a moment; while Arabella, flying after him, strug- 
gled to possess herself of his arm, or a breadth of his 
cloak, in hopes to moderate the vehemence of his move- 
ments. Mean while, the two waiters and a chamber- 
maid, who stood flaring three tallow candles in his face, 
vainly vociferated to the intruders their regret that there 
should not be a vacant bed in the house. Sir Henry 
shoved them aside without remorse, desiring to be shown 
to the presence of the parties “ belonging to” the calash 
and the britschka. The result is already before the 
reader! Yet no — not the whole result—not the con- 
sternation of Lady Wellwood — not the malicious tri- 
umph of Mrs. Etherington— not the still more trium- 
phant vain-gloriousness of the conquering hero in the 
dressing-gown i—Miss Letitia Broadsden was the only 
member of the party sufficiently disengaged in mind. 


MAINTENANCE. 


65 


body, and estate, to rise and offer chairs to the in- 
truders; bat Dornton was the first to speak. 

“Ah! my dear Wei I wood ! I thought you would not 
be able to reconcile yourself to the notion of remaining 
alone at the Abbey, with only Sandys and All stone, and 
leaving Lady Wellwood to the pleasing task of admi- 
nistering draughts and lotions to her suffering relative 
in town. How many hours have you been on the road, 

■ — my dear fellow, — and what o’clock have we brought 
it to.^ — I fancy my Brequet caught cold on leaving 
town, for it has never gone right since I entered Staf- 
ford sli ire.” 

Mr. Dornton did not want an answer, and did not 
receive one; — Sir Henry had gone straight across the 
room to his wife, and, with prodigious mastery over his 
feelings, conversed with her in a general way respect- 
ing Lady Mandcville’s illness. Miss Rodney strove, 
mean while, to divert the attention of Mrs. Etherington 
and the toady, by entering into an elaborate discussion 
of the state of the weather and the roads, or she at least 
would have detected in the inflections of her brother’s 
voice, the anguish of ids heart 

The first words of Sir Henry’s harangue to his wife 
that became generally audible to the party, were, “As 
it appears there are no beds to be had here, I will re- 
main halt an hour wl)ile Arabella takes some refresh- 
ments, and your baggage is prepared, and then we can 
proceed on to the next stage.” 

Now, had Sir Henry only given precedence to the 
baggage of Ids wife over the refreshments of Miss Rod- 
ney, all had been well. But Lady Wellwood could 
neither support the ignominy of hearing her sister-in- 
law named before herself, nor endure the glances of 
pity and contempt launched at her by her friend Helena, 
and her friend’s friend, Mr. Dornton. She set her 
teeth togetlier for a moment, and planted hersell firmly 
on the ground, to sciew up her courage to the sticking- 
place; then coolly informed her husband that it was not 
her intention to travel farther that night, — that he and 
Miss Rodney could do as they pleased, and that she 
would follow them in the morning with Mrs. Ethe- 
rington. 

“Allow me to say” — Sir Henry began in a stento- 
rian voice. 


6G 


THE SEPARATE 


“Dear Henrietta,” pleaded Miss Rodney, inter- 
posing, “ pray take me to your room and lend me a 
warm shawl; you can settle this business afterwards.” 

But her friendly desire to pacify the matrimonial 
feud, by obtaining a few minutes’ conversation with her 
sister-in-law, unbiassed by the presence of her false 
friends, was completely thwarted by the temper of Hen- 
rietta. She would not allow the spiteful Helena an op- 
portunity of spreading a report among their London 
circle of friends, that Lady Well wood the heiress, — 
Lady Wei I wood the beauty,— Lady Well wood the 
bride, — was already hectored into tameness by her hus- 
band’s sister. While Letitia’s eyes twinkled applause 
of her spirit, she replied with scorn that she had no 
shawls to lend, that she had left them all at the Abbey, 
and that there could be no advantage in procrastinating 
the arrangement of their plans. “ It is my intention to 
reach town late to-morrow night, or early the following 
morning, w'ith Mrs. Etherington. To-night we all 
sleep here,” persisted Lady Well wood, conclusively. 

“ Well, well,” cried Miss Rodney, trusting her bro- 
ther might be persuaded to acquiesce in the plan. “ Let 
it be so! you can easily make arrangements lor joining 
Harry in town, since we shall be there so long before 
you.” 

How difficult is it to deal with persons of touchy dis- 
positions and narrow minds! — Again, the phrase was at 
fault! — “ You can make,” implied to the grammatical 
ear of the spoiled child, “I will allow jou to make;” 
and to be sanctioned in her actions by a Miss Arabella 
Rodney, was almost as intolerable as to be forced into 
a travelling carriage with her, like a sulky school-girl, 
;..iid talked at by Sir Henry for the remaining hundred 
and nineteen miles of their journey. Again Frederick 
Dornton’s compassionating glances fired up her soul to 
resistance. 

“I am not aware how far your relationship ” (there 
was a harsh emphasis on the word, which brought a 
flush into the pale cheek of Arabella) “ may authorize 
you to interfere in the affairs of Sir Henry Wellwood; 
but I must request you will not extend your influence 
to mine. I am going to town to the residence of my 
nearest relative, on business of iny own. I shall not 
hurry or retard my movements to indulge the caprice 


kAINl'ENANCE. 


67 


of other people, and I beg I may be nO obstruction to 
your own journey.” 

“Henrietta!” said Sir Henry, in a voice that ap- 
pered to jar all the glasses, tumblers, rummers, and 
punch-bowls on the sideboard: — but he could not utter 
another word. Having previously retreated a few 
steps to lean against the table, he now advanced 
towards her and fixed upon her a glance which seemed 
designed to penetrate the most secret obscurity of 
her thoughts and intentions. Instead, however, of 
shrinking or recoiling from the investigation, (though 
her heart throbbed and her limbs trembled with con- 
sternation,) she returned him look for look, inquisi- 
tion for inquisition; and bravely stood her ground, 
when, at the expiration of a minute's silence, Sir Henry 
threw his cloak over his shoulder, drew the ann of 
Arabella within his own, and without deigning to be- 
stow the slightest token of notice on any person pre- 
sent, quitted the apartment. 

As soon as they reached the hall, Miss Rodney sobbed 
forth an entreaty that he would not be precipitate; that 
he would return and request a private interview with 
Lady Wellwood; she even begged permission to proceed 
to Mrs. Delafield’s in a post-chaise, that her presence 
might not still farther irritate the feelings of Henrietta. 
But he replied only by pressing her arm tenderly to his 
si(}e. — “ His sister! — his own poor unfortunate Bella! — 
towards whom he had so aft’ectionately laboured to at- 
temper the disdains of the world; she to be coarsely in- 
sulted by his wife in the presence of such beings as Dorn- 
ton and Letitia Broadsden !” But though these thoughts 
passed through his mind, not a syllable passed through 
his lips. He motioned to his footman, who was stand- 
ing great-coated, oil-skinned, and Belcher-handker- 
chiefed in the hall, that the carriage was to draw up. 
All had been previously settled with the Green Dra- 
gonites, by the John who now hastened to slap up the 
Steps and slam to the door with the noisy dexterity of 
a machinist in a pantomime. Away they went,— “ all 

paid!” at the pace of one of Rothschild’s couriers; 

and illuminating the London road with the blaze of 
of their patent, self reflecting, self-protecting, metallo- 
spheroido carriage-lamps; — which alas! blazed not halt 


THE SEPARATE 


m 

SO fiercely through the luists of night, as the flame of 
conjugal indignation igniting a crater of vengeance 
within the heart of the injured Sir Henry Well- 

wood! — ^ , j 1 j 

It is really amazing what strength of mind and body 
the most nervous ladies can conjure up, to carry them 
victoriously through whatever storms it pleases them 
to provoke. Lady Well wood, nurtured by the hys- 
terical Lady Mandeville in all the morbid susceptibili- 
ties of female temperament, was by nature or custom 
a great swooner of swoonsj but except a little choking 
in her throat, which was drowned in the departing 
rumble of the wheels of Sir Henry’s chariot, she main- 
tained a most heroical self-possession throughout 
their fracas. While a unanimous shout of “Bravo! 
Lady Wellwood!” “My dear, I congratulate ^ou!” 
burst from the lips of her companions, she sat motion- 
less in her chair, with an air of calm magnanimity wor- 
thy to have adorned the mother of the Gracchii. 

“And what do you mean to do?” inquired Mrs. 
Etherington; who, having accomplished her purpose of 
agonizing Sir Henry Well wood, and humiliating the 
officious sister by whose influence her own plots had 
been originally circumvented, had no immediate duty 
to perform but that of carrying oft’Mr. Dornton. “After 
all, perhaps you would have done better to accompany 
them. Lady Mandeville may take it into her head to 
scold us for our proceedings.” 

“ I am tired of being scolded,” cried Henrietta, ral- 
lying her spirits, “ quite tired ! — Henceforward I am 
resolved to act on my own judgment, and with a view 
to my own happiness.” 

“ As if she had ever studied that of any other per- 
son,” thought the toady. 

“Thank heaven, I am perfectly independent; and I 
will no longer be a puppet, danced up and down at the 
good will and pleasure of everyone who can talk longer 
or louder than myself.” 

“To be sure not!” said the toady. 

“ And since I find that my comings and goings, my 
friendships and attachments, are to be regulated by 
the officiousness of a mischief-making girl like that 
Miss Rodney, I shall take care that the separate main- 


kAINTENANCE. 


69 


tenance provided by my aunt Mandeville’s foresight, 
secures me from farther insult from Sir Henry Well- 
wood and his family.’* 

“Quite right!” yawned the dandy, taking snuff; for 
he was not yet sufficiently secure of Mrs. Etherington 
to withdraw his attentions from her friend and rival. 
“It will be the duty as well as the pleasure of all Lady 
Well wood’s admirers, to maintain her in so judicious 
a determination.” 

“ Ah ! my dear Henrietta, — take care how you quar- 
rel with your cake,” said Helena, somewhat piqued. 
“You will find two or three thousand a-year and a 
poky house in some obscure street near Portman-square, 
a very different thing from Wellwood Abbey with fif- 
teen thousand.” 

“Two or three hundred^ with peace and quietness, 
would suit me quite as well.” 

“Quite as well!” echoed Miss Broadsden, on whom 
the hint of her patroness was not thrown away. She 
had in fact been too much harassed by the caprices and 
ill nature of Mrs. Etherington during the seven months 
their kindred minds had commingled under the same 
roof, not to feel that almost any change would improve 
her condition; and having noticed the liberality of 
Henrietta’s hand, and the generosity of her heart, she 
now decided that a Lady Wellwood, living separated 
from her husband with an income of several thousands 
per annum, was a far better speculation for her toady- 
ship than a Mrs. Etherington with the same “ means” 
but very different “ways;” with as restless a look out 
after a good match as the most cunning chaperon that 
ever wore turban; and as malicious a grudge against 
every attention bestowed on the rest of her sex, as 
rankled in the heart of the ancient Letitia herself. 
From the moment the amount of her ladyship’s separate 
maintenance was indirectly set forth, she formed a se- 
cret determination that Calais and Dover should unite 
into one city, sooner than Sir Henry and Lady Well- 
wood into man and wife! 

During that eventful night, while Henrietta moistened 
her pillow one moment with repentant tears, and dried 
them the next with the angry flush of her fevered cheek, 
Miss Broadsden lay forming projects for the morrow’s 


?0 


THE SEPARATE 


malice. From Lichfield to London, she took care that 
her fair companion should be supplied with an infinite 
variety of aggravations against her husband and his sis- 
ter; — that slie should learn the lady’s-maids’ reports of 
Mr. Roddington’s sketch of her ladyship’s life and 
limes for the amusement of the steward’s-room; that she 
should be impressed with the weight of remorse likely 
to assail Sir Henry Wellwood’s mind at the mere hint 
of a separate maintenance. It need not be doubted that 
Henrietta entered the mansion of her dearest aunt Man- 
deville at the close of her journey, intent only on put- 
ting the affection and firmness of her husband to the 
proof, and on ensuring the banishment of Miss Rodney 
from his counsels. 

The frantic joy with which she was welcomed by the 
foolish old dowager, did not diminish the evil. Even 
the remembrance of Wellwood’s idolatry waxed pale 
by comparison with the crack-brained adoration with 
which Lady Mandeville gazed on her restored treasure, 
and encouraged the details of her injuries and afflic- 
tions. 


CHAPTER XI. 


Should all despair 

That have revolted wives, the tenth part of mankind 
Would hang themselves. 

Winter’s Tale. 

Although the whole world seems inclined to ap- 
plaud the dictum that in the multitude of counsellors 
there is wisdom, it may be observed, that the “multi- 
tude” constituting a party, whether political or domes- 
tic, forms too unanimous a jury to merit much atten- 
tion. While Tories listen exclusively to Tories and 
Whigs have only ears for Whigs, the opinions to vvhich 
they yield attention might just as well be concentrated 


MAINl'ENANCE* 


71 


by a single voice, and delivered through a speaking 
trumpet. 

And thus, while Lady Wellwood thought proper to 
intrust the secret of her matrimonial grievances only to 
the choice coterie ol Lady Mandeville’s card-playing 
dowagers and spinsters (a » corporation professionally 
opposed to tlie oppressions and innovations of the foul 
sex,) she stood very little cliance of having her wisdom 
augmented, or her ill temper reproved. Her own gar- 
bled narrative of wrongs, had inllamed the mind of her 
indignant aunt to a most exaggerated view of the case; 
and it was tliis magnification of Sir Henry’s misdoings 
and her ladyship’s sufierings, confided in strict secrecy 
to thirty old ladies per diem, which travelled the towii 
from Bryanston Square to Storey’s Gate, gathering mat- 
ter like a snow-ball by the way, and forming an inviting 
nucleus for farther calumnies. Before she had been 
three days in town, while her husband and herself (mu- 
tually indignant as they were mutually attached) were 
bent on maintaining all the etiquettes of the most fro- 
ward perversity, — each having determined that the first 
step towards elucidation should proceed from the other, 
— a thousand injurious suspicions were instilled into her 
mind. Old Lady Buntingford protested that it was ori- 
ginally understood to be an interested matcli on the part 
of Sir Henry Weilwood; Mrs. Maria Brudenell ac- 
know'ledged she had always lieard tlie gentleman’s ob- 
ject in marrying was to secure a home for his sister; and 
old Miss Fillingwell assured Lady Mandeville in con- 
fidence, she knew from tlie best authority, that Well- 
wood had only proposed to Miss Broughton in the pique 
of liaving been refused by Mrs. Elherington. Hour af- 
ter hour, poor Henrietta sat exposed do volleys of poi- 
soned arrows, launched at lier with the best intentions 
by tlie kindest and dearest of her friends. 

* No sooner did Miss Broadsden discover that the ve- 
nom was taking efiect— that tlie mind of the indignant 
wife was beginning to fester and gangrene— than she 
ventured on new weapons. Faithful to the interests of 
the most injured of victims, she was at Henrietta’s bed- 
side before her eyes were open, with Jerernaids over the 
perverted statements o[ her conduct which were gradu- 
ally finding their way into society, sanctioned, doubt- 

tVoL. L 7 


THE SEPARATE 


t2 

less, by the dotage of that silly puppet, ‘‘poor dear 
Mrs. Delafield, and invented by the malice of that vile 
designing upstart. Miss Rodney. Still more enraged, 
and consequently still more credulous, the provoked 
wife rose to listen to Letitia’s assurances that “it grieved 
her to speakj that had not dear Lady Well wood’s eyes 
been opened, nothing should have induced her to give 
utterance to her own vague suspicions. But she raust 
say she had reason to think, that all the hours of Sir 
Henry’s absence from the Abbey had not been uniformly 
passed in the hunting field. He had been seen at very 
odd hours, and under very strange circumstances, loi- 
tering about the village. Mrs. Etherington’s own maid 
was pretty near sure it could be nobody but Sir Henry 
she met in the dusk one evening, walking arm and arm 
with a prodigiously smart farmer’s daughter of the 
neighbourhood 5 and as his character in such respects 
was notorious enough in the country previously to his 
marriage, it was to be feared that the present proprietor 
of Well wood Abbey would show as dangerous an ex- 
ample in point of morality as his predecessor. Miss 
Rodney would probably have some little nameless ne- 
phews and nieces to keep her ugly face in countenance. 
Not, to be sure, poor thing, that she thought her face 
never would have passed so much time 
in trying to decry the beauty of her sister-in-law. Mrs. 
Etherington and Letitia had heard her say fifty times, 
and in the most disparaging way, that she saw nothing 
very wonderfidm Lady Wellwood’s face; and that as 
to her/gwre, — her waist was as square as a packino--- 
case!” * ^ 

Every reader must have observed how readily a fa- 
got bursts into a blaze, after having been previously 
warmed over the embers. This last sulphurated match 
was not applied in vain. " The ignition was instanta- 
neous; and when Henrietta received, in the course of 
the day, a note containing only — i 

“How long is this to last?— When will you admit i 
me, that every thing may be cleared up between my 
dear Henrietta and her affectionate “ H. W.” ^ 

she actually reclosed the billet, and sent it back in a 


MAINTENANCE. 


73 


blank envelope! — Lady Mandeville and Miss Broads- 
den applauded her spirit^ and Lady Wellvvood, though 
half wild with feverish excitement, protested she had 
never enjoyed a triumph half so much in her life. 

The following day, a new motive for dissatisfaction 
presented itself. It appeared, or was reported to ap- 
pear, that Sir Henry Well wood had been making inqui- 
ries of Lady Mandeville’s servants respecting the visit- 
ers admitted to her ladyship; with a particular clause 
in reference to the brother of Lord Sandys. “Sus- 
pected, — traduced, — exposed to the ill-opinion of her 
own domestics!” — was it to be supposed that the divine 
Henrietta Broughton would stoop to the endurance of 
such an outrage? 

“Doubtless he wishes to procure evidence to accom- 
plish a legal separation,” observed Mrs. Etherington, 
who was present when this last atrocity was set forth 
in Lady Well wood’s hearing. 

“Oh! certainly,” echoed Letitia, loud enough for 
Henrietta to hear. “We can all understand that it 
would be very satisfactory to the parties to have a sepa- 
rate maintenance arranged; so that Miss Arabella Rod- 
ney might settle herself at once to do the honours of the 
Abbey to the fox-hunting savages, and Sir Henry be at 
liberty to walk about in the dark with his tenants’ 
-daughters.” 

“ If I were you, Hatty,” cried Mrs. Etherington, 
whose object it was to torment, not to estrange the un- 
loving couple, “I would disappoint them all by assert- 
ing my rights and assuming my lawful authority. I 
would go back to the Abbey in defiance of them! You 
know he can have no evidence to invalidate your claims. 
Take my advice, and compel him to receive you with 
proper respect.” 

“ Compel him?” cried Henrietta; her plumes ruffling 
like those of an angry bird. “No, indeed! My only 
exercise of power on this occasion will extend to the 
signature of a separate maintenance. Thank heaven, 
my dear aunt is still willing to receive me; insulted as 
I have been, I have still friends to protect my interests 
and watch over ray happiness. 

She left the room on uttering this declaration, for her 
Jheart swelled within her beyond her own power of con^ 


74 


THE' SEPARATE 


trolling ils emotions; and she would not expose her 
tears to (he scorn of persons so prompt in malicious in- 
terpretations as Mrs. Etlierington and her shadow. She 
soon repented, indeed, that she had even allowed thena 
to be witnesses of her hasty declaration. Without suf- 
ficient generosity of mind or strength of character, to 
feel that an opinion wrested out of tjie lieart by tempo- 
rary irritation may be repented, and lionourably retract- 
ed, she kept repeating to herself that “having declared 
her intention of insisting on a separate maintenance she 
must maintain her consistency. Were she to relent, 
what would those two women say of her?— What would 
the world think of the poorness of her spirit, the mean- 
ness of her concessions?” Lady W’ellwood had not yet 
attained that advantageous epoch of human experience 
which reveals to (he pilgrims of the ear th (or to that de- 
tachment living within reach of coterie-influence the 
clamours of the daily press and the verdict of the lounge- 
ocracy) how fruitless are the sacrifices we lay on the al- 
tars of what is called the World; — the epoch when we 
discover, like Princess Parizade in the tale, that ten 
fliousand idle voices in the air calling on us to turn back 
from an undertaking, are but a snare to mislead us from 
our path. 

Even after Lady Well wood had sanctioned the pro- 
ceedings of Lady Mandeville’s solicitor in demanding 
from her husband a mutual arrangement confirming her 
independence and his own, on the grountls of incompa- 
tibility of temper (other and more grievous charges be- 
ing reserved to oppose any resistance he might be in- 
clined to offer to the suit) she would have given her 
right hand for an accidental meeting with him, such as 
might sexure a general explanation, and probably the 
restoration 'of a good understanding. Ifiit while Miss 
Letitia Broadsden — hourly more enchanted with her 
new prospects, and disgusted with her former patro- 
ness — continued to haunt her society, influence her opi- 
nions, and even regulate her movements, there was little 
hope of such a consummation. 

At her suggestion, an answer, chilled fifty degrees 
below zero, was returned to the kind, amiabLe, feminine 
letter, by which Arabella strove to mediate between the 
belligerent parties. At Acr suggestion Lady Well wood 


maintenance. 


75 


was either “not at home,*’ or ^‘particularly engaged,” 
whenever Mrs. Delafield’s carriage drove to the door; 
nay! even when Miss Rodney hit upon the expedient of 
walking to Lady Mandeville’s with her maid, and re- 
questing admittance to her perverse sister-in-law under 
the designation of a “ person wishing to speak to Lady 
Wellwood on business, it was still Letitia’s foresight 
which enabled her to penetrate the mystery of Arabella’s 
green veil, and to despatch Mrs. Lawford as her ple- 
nipotentiary to the “ person ” so pertinaciously in- 
truding.’* 

Mean while. Sir Henry was not much to be envied 
He had the comfort of passing Frederick Dorn ton in 
St. James’s Street, with Jessy following at his heels, 
without any reasonable grounds for horse-whipping or 
shooting either dandy or dog. Although he entertained 
very little doubt that Henrietta’s motive for seeking a 
separate maintenance was the desire to emancipate her- 
self from restraint, and throw off a tie grown hateful to 
her in order to indulge in her predilection for the brother 
of Lord Sandys, he could not obtain the slightest hint 
of evidence tending to establish such an opinion. 

“Well, well,’-’ cried Tom Allstone, who had now 
joined him in town to lend a Patroclian ear to his mur- 
murs, “if it be really so, the thing will prove itself. 
You will eventually obtain a divorce, and liberty to form 
a more judicious choice. And if not, (as I really and 
honestly believe,) why you will soon find Jhe silly girl 
grow tired of her peevish folly, and come begging to be 
installed once more as the idol of your soul.” 

“ I doubt it — I very much doubt it,” cried Sir Henry, 
who, from tlie obstinacy of his own character, was 'per- 
haps enabled to estimate that of Henrietta. “ Now she 
has got this cursed notion of a separate maintenance 
into her head, and surrounded as she is by a tribe of 
silly, mischief-making women, there is no chance of a 
iucid interval. The thing must take its course.” 

Its course consisted, of course, in a great many six- 
and-eightpenny worths, and thirteen-and-tourpenny 
worths of snip-snap between the solicitors; inferences 
and confutations, — imputations and refutations, — pro- 
posals and disposals; — divers folios of seyenty-two 
w:ords each (the most provocatory that could be picked 


76 


THE SEPARATE 


out of the folios of the great lexicographer)'being €5- | 

changed on the occasion, between Gray's Inn and Lin- i 
coin’s Inn^ with an occasional opinion from Knight I 
Rider Street, Doctor’s Commons. But the conclusion | 
of the business was enveloped in a document, inscribed ; 
on parchment, authorizing “Dame Henrietta Well- 
wood, of Weil wood Abbey, in the liberties of Stoke, in ' 
the county" of Stafford,” to reside for the future with j 
the partial old aunt whose folly had been the origin of | 
all her errors.; and securing to her sole and separate use, | 
the quarterly payment of two thousand per annum. ! 

In all probabifity, the. signature of this important do- 
cument was a matter of satisfaction only to the attorneys 
intrusted in its composition, and the toady interested in 
its execution. Dame Henrietta Wellwood, whom it 
chiefly concerned, was triumphant, but not happy. Even 
Lady Mandeville was mortified at the notion of her 
niece’s resigning the family diamonds and her set of 
-grays, before she had been so much as presented. There 
was something ignominious in the aft'air: Mrs. Ethe- 
rington whispered as much to her the very day after the 
deed was formally signed. However, it was too late 
now. The satisfaction of having a second scene to go 
through within a year of the one so brilliantly repre- 
sented in Maddox-street, dhl not console her for the 
loss of Wellwood Abbey; besides, though she consi- 
- dered it her duty to repeat the dead feint on the present 
occasion, the proctor was not worth mentioning after 
the dean — he wore only a round hat, and took the liber- 
ty of examining her complexion through his spectacles! 
She had ample leisure to ponder over this the following 
week, when she found herself settled at Sandgate, with 
Miss Letitia and Dame Henrietta, by way of temporary 
retirement from the notice of society. 

And Sir Henry? Wounde<l to the very hearths 

core by this sudden, — this premature,— this extraordi- 
nary overthrow of all his hopes, — of all his happiness, — 
his struggles w-ere, indeed, bitter! his disappointment, 
his mortification insupportable. Eager to shun the 
world which he knew must be engaged in an imperti- 
nent discussion of his mischances, and loathing that 
rhome which was now rendered hateful to him by so 
k many humiliating reminiscences; detesting even himself. 


'MAINTENANCE. 


77 


nvhcm he accused of obstinacy, idiotcy, and an infinite 
variety of amiable qualities, he looked despairingly 
round the world for a refuge for his harassed body,--— 
an occupation for his jaded mind. 

The copious development of the organs of constructive- 
ness and destructiveness in his cranium probably decided 
his selection. He commissioned a popular architect to de- 
vote a few of his loose thousands to the erection of a new 
wing to Wellvvood Abbey; and without consulting sister 
or sisters, — Roddington, or Tom Alistone, — made ar- 
rangements at the Horse Guards for re-entering the army. 
A vacancy unfortunately presented itself -in a crack 
‘ Hussar regiment, on the point of embarkation for the 
Peninsula; and within three months of the scene at the 
Green Dragon, Major Sir Henry Wellwood was re- 
duced to the vulgar level of humanity by a fit of severe 
sea sickness in a government transport in the Bay of 
-Biscay. He was undergoing the preliminary probation 
necessary to become a hero. 


CHAPTER XII. 


iA change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 

The wanderer was alone as heretofore. 

The beings which surrounded him w’ere gone, 

Or were at war with him; he was a mark 

For blight and desolation— compass’d round 

With hatred and contention. Byroit 


Ht has become SO much the fashion during the last 
r three or four years to insert at the head of those inte- 
resting periodicals, the playbills, “ A lapse of five 
.years, or a lapse of twenty years, is support! to occur 
between the first and second .acts, that it as "“t 
croaching unreasonably on the credulity of the public, 
to request its fitith in the expiration . ol four, between 
;.chapters XI. and XII. of this present narrative. The. re- 


78 


THE SEPARATE 


markable events illustrating the interval may be omitted 
without any material loss to the reader;-— being simply 
the death of Lady Mandeville of a surfeit, — and, after 
repeated refusals on the part of the lady, the union of 
poor dear Arabella with the redoubtable Tom, now, by 
club acclamation, Mr. Allstone, and a senator. 

In the month of June, then, 1813, about lour o’clock 
in the afternoon, a warm clear afternoon, moistened by 
a five minutes’ shower just sufficient to render the Lon- 
don dust a perfume instead of a nuisance, a postchaise 
and four was seen galloping over Westminster Bridge, 
followed by hundreds of “stupid starers,” who, for 
once became intelligent; — and a chorus of “ loud huz- 
zas,” for once well-merited. The chaise was covered 
with laurels! — “An aide-de-camp of Lord Welling- 
ton,” “ glory,” — “triumph,” — “ victory,” — “ twenty 
pieces of cannon,”' — “loss of the French, prodigious,” 
— ran echoing from mouth to mouth as the vehicle rat- 
tled onwards to Downing Street. An officer with a 
soiled and travel-stained uniform stepped from the 
chaise; and after ten minutes’ interview with Lord Cas- 
tlereagh, proceeded onwards to the Horse Guards. 

The victory was the battle of Vittoria; — the bearer 
of the laurel -crowned despatch — Lieutenant Colonel 
Sir Henry Well wood! — 

Alas! that time should have slipped away like the 
waters of an ebbing ocean, leaving us stranded on the 
beach, to depict as a point of history that critical Bona- 
partean epoch, when the destinies oV Europe and of fifty 
thousand British soldiers, seemed suspemled on every 
blast of the newsman’s horn; — when a Gazette was not, 
as now, a dry record of forty bankruptcies per week, 
enlivened by his “ Majesty’s gracious permission to 
Mr. Dickens Tottentot Dickens, of Tottentot Park, to 
assume and bear the Tottentot arms quarterly with 
those of Dickins;” and catastrophized by his Majesty’s 
gracious offer of his gracious pardon, and a still more 
gracious largesse of ^0200 to “ whoever shall discover 
or brini^ to light the incendiary or incendiaries con- 
cerned in the malicious burning of a barley-mow and 
piggery on the twenty-seventh day of March, whereby 
eleven pigs were consigned to the flames at Eastino-ton 
Croft, in the countj of Lancaster”’— when the nain'e of 


MAINTENANCE. 


79 


•W ellington, or ‘‘ Weliinjr-t-o-n,^’ as it was prolonged by 
the tartarea tromba of the news-venders, was sufficient 
to collect a mob as respectable and important as those 
just now commanded by the oratory of Colonel Jonesj 
when the mere announcement of a courier had power to 
set thousands of beating hearts in motion; children 
trembling for their fathers,— wives trembling for the 
fathers of their children! not to specify the agonies of 
the young ladies, whose barley-sugar susceptibilities are 
of inferior moment. 

But, alas ! amid all these perturbations, who was there 
to tremble for the gallant Major Wei hvood, when the 
horn sounded and the wet sheet of the sixth edition of the 
Evening Courier steamed by the fire-side of so many 

an anxious circle.^ — Who was there to seek out the 

th Hussars, amid that perplexing numeral catalogue of 
the loved and lost? — “ Killed, — wounded, — missing, 
—TAKEN prisoners!” — how Completely have we lost 
the agonizing sense once attached to these fatal words! 
—For many a year the first has been familiar among 
us when expounding the extent of some patrician bat- 
tue; while the “missing” seems good only to head some 
advertisement of a lost bracelet, or “ A Gentleman” 
stolen or strayed. 

Once indeed, — on one unfortunate occasion, when the 
despatch announcing a disastrous skirmish near Bur- 
gos happened to be penned by an honourable field offi- 
cer, ot Harrow caligraphy and Hibernian perplexity of 
intellect, that very word, — that fatal “ missing” — was 
erroniously attached to the name of the proprietor of 
Wellwood Abbey; and the result of the blunder may 
serve to determine the reply to our leading question. 
During the week that intervened previously to the ar- 
rival of the following courier, it was by Mrs. Allstone 
alone that the War Office was pestered with daily in- 
quiries; and .with the exception of a bribe offered for 
early intelligence to a junior clerkling by a certain 
Sir Thomas Riddlesworth, a notorious adorer of the 
beautiful Lady Wellwood, .no one. testified the least 
interest in the event. 

But if they cared notfoi'his departure from this life, 
it was impossible to remain indiflferent to his arrival in 
vlhis kingdom. Perhaps of all sublunary triumphs, 


80 


THE SEPARATE 


there is none greater than to be the bearer oT intel- 
ligence capable of drawing forth smiles or tears from 
seven millions of human beings. The conquering Ge- 
neral himself, (washing the “damned spot” from his 
hand at the close of a victory, with ears deafened by the 
recent shouts and roaringordnance which so well obeyed 
his behests, his nostrils excoriated by smoke, his eyes 
irritated by the glare of countless phalanxes, and haunt- 
ed by the spectacle of a plain encumbered with dead 
and tlying— perhaps the parting pressure of some be- 
loved friend and valuable comrade still lingering on 
his hand,) tastes but sparingly of the cup of glory, com- 
pared with the buoyant, unresponsible, glowing aide- 
de-camp who brings to the feet of his sovereign the 
intelligence of some mighty victory, — confirmed by a 
captured eagle, or tributary baton. For once the popu- 
lation of the kingdom is unanimous. “Beautiful,” 
says the Scripture, “ are the feet of the bringeys of 
good tidings I” To them every heart warms, — every 
hand is extended. For a moment, the coldest indivi- 
dual is inspired with enthusiasm; for a moment, the 
sounds of “our country, our liberty, — victory, — tri- 
umph!” — may be heard hovering on the lips of the sel- 
fish man, and animating the dulness of the dolt; — for 
a moment, the simple captain of dragoons becomes a 
demigod. 

And yet, amid all these national gratulations, the 
smiles of royalty, the flummery of ministers, the ca- 
resses of their ladies, the mob round the hotel, the 
squibs and crackers in the streets, the firing of the 
Park and Tower guns, and the ringing of all the bells 
from Padding to Mile-end, the heart of Sir Henry 
Well wood soon relaxed in its elation. On returning 
home from a star and garter dinner party at the Pre- 
mier’s, having shaken hands vvfth some score or two 
of females in shawls and straw bonnets, assembled in 
the hall of the hotel to catch a sight of a right-down, 
real, living whiskered, and mustachioed hero, — he re- 
treated into his own room, weary with praise and the 
catechismal condescension of the illustrious, to pause 
for one desolate moment in the brilliant tumult of his 
.career. 

He had still a task to perform before he retired to 


MAINTENANCE. 


8J 


rest^ to answer three or four anxious notes of inquiry 
from the friends of friends and comrades he had left 
behind, for which half a dozen gaping footmen were 
waiting belowj and two or three letters to indite, 
enclosing tokens intrusted to his care, — some by 
the living, — some by the dead. — He had a lock of hair 
to deliver from a lover to his plighted bride; he had a 
ring, — a wedding pledge, — taken from the cold finger 
of an expiring hero to convey to the mother of his or- 
phans. It was no very cheering occupation to draw forth 
these treasures from his pocket-book, and remember 
that Ais hair. Ids bridal token, would have been sought 
or prized by no mortal breathing: nay, that their ap- 
pearance would probably be hailed with triumph by 
the worldly woman whom his death enfranchised from 
her bonds. 

He had neither friends nor kindred in town to di- 
mmish his isolation. Arabella he knew was at her 
husband’s seat in Yorkshire; and though the intelli- 
gence of his arrival would probably bring her to Lon- 
don, many days — a week — must elapse previously to 
her appearance; and even then, her husband and her 
two children now claimed their share in that warm af- 
fection which had formerly been exclusively devoted 
to himself. Mrs. Delafiebl, his more immediate sis- 
ter, was living at Mortlake; but Sir Henry was too well 
acquainted with the delicate state of her nerves to ven- 
ture on disturbing her at midnight. He knew he must 
wait till morning to intrude on so inveterate an invalid; 
and as the natural or national reserve of his character 
whispered that it might be accounted an act of display 
to visit his own beloved and faithful club, in regimen- 
tals, to be questioned and complimented, he content- 
ed himself with ringing the bell for a glass of iced wa- 
ter and the Court Guide, and resolved to retire to that 
rest which many sleepless nights rendered so desirable. 
~ The glass of iced water is a demand readily to be un- 
derstood by those who have chanced to be successively 
pledged by the united cabinet in ministerial claret. But 
the court guide! — what a paltry appetite for a man 
blackened with the smoke of a recent victory: — the 
pedlar of Marshal’s batons and imperial eagles! — Per- 
haps, — for his Hussar jacket had done the state and 


82 


THE SEPARATE 


himself some service, — he was bent on ascertaining 
whether Stulz still issued his golden bills and golden 
bulls from Clifford Street. -Stulz!” (oh! West- 
minster Review! where is ihy ferule ot office?) — 

But it was not »****, nor any other tailor nor 
tradesman of the metropolis^ who moved his curiosity. 
Sir Henry had not been long enough absent from Eng- 
land to confound the Court Guide with the Directory. 
It was to the Ms he turned, — where no Mandcville ap- 
peared, excepting as — T. V. Mandeville, sol. King’s 
bench Walk, Middle Temple;” — to the Ws, and no 
Wellw'ood met his eye excepting a “Mrs. Wellwood, 
Blenheim House Academy, Broinpton Row!” He was 
compelled to retire to bed without any more explicit 
acquaintance wdth Henrietta’s whereabout, than it she 
had been some enterprising martyr smitten witli the 
love of African discovery; and seeing that Thomas All- 
stone, Esq. M. P. was an inhabitant of St. James’s 
Place, he slept as well as he could upon that barren in- 
telligence. 

Tim morning came; and some dozen of old acquaint- 
ances, who now styled themselves friends, crowded 
round his breakfast table, to inquire, lament, assert, 
gather news for general circulation, and triumph in the 
possession of an inexperienced ear into which to pour 
all the twice-told tales of the preceding month. Never 
had poor Sir Henry been so supertiuously favoured with 
scandalous reports, hints of changes in the ministry, 
drawing-room divorces, and cabinet squabbles, — pro- 
bable flirtations and certain elopements. Pie was made 

to listen to insinuations concerning a Lady A for 

whom he cared not a straw; and levelations touching 

the Marchioness of B , whom he had never even 

seen; but not a syllable was whispered touching 
Lady Wellwood. No one was exactly aware of the 
terms subsisting between himself and his wife. The 
world knew there had been “a quarrel — but nothing 
wherefore.” 

It did, however, afftud him considerable satisfaction, 
notwithstanding the philanthropy inseparable from the 
triumph of such an epoch, and the delight of swallow- 
ing a wholesome English breakfast, after much travel 
by sea and land, the straits of a campaign and the 


MAINTENANCE. 


83 


Straits of Dover, to learn that Mrs. Dornton, that 
brewer of mischief, was now condemned to swallow 
some of her own bitter decoctions. Annuities and 
mortgages, bills, bonds, and debts of honour, had done 
their worst to teach her the error of her ways in allying 
herself with a self-conceited spendthrift^ who made no 
scruple in alleging the shrewishness of her temper, and 
the unloveliness of her person, as his apology for seek- 
ing his amusements in every one’s home but his own. 
The Honourable Frederick was said to leave his wife 
to the undisturbed enjoyment of her poverty; while her 
only engine of retaliation was the power of stunning 
him with a conjugal storm. Sir Henry could scarcely 
refrain from inquiring whether her friend Henrietta had 
abandoned her; but he had not courage to pronounce the 
name. 

At length, he got away from the button-holding 
throng, which hastened to disperse itself through the 
clubs and disseminate the intelligence he had afforded. 
The carriage was waiting to convey him to Mortlake; 
and as he bowled -smoothly along that royal road of 
many gardens, refreshing, indeed, was the sight of Eng- 
lish verdure, and the cheerful stir of an English popu- 
lation, after four years of toilsome campaigning, em- 
bellished by the grea.se, garlick, and Guerillas of the 
Peninsula. Home associations came thronging round 
Ids heart. He looked on the green elms, red roses, 
and smiling faces, and thought of his own Staflordshire, 
till a sigh rose to his lips, and a tear to his eyes. Tlie 
past was more vividly before him than tlie present. “ I 
will not think of her,” cried lie, aloud; although it \yas 
a place rather than a person which avowedly occupied 
his imagination. 

But whoever might be the “ her ” thus cavalierly 
consigned to oblivion, it was certainly Mrs. Delafield 
on whom he strove to direct the current of his conjec- 
tures; — Mrs. Delafield, whom he had left an infirm suf- 
ferer, reclining on the sofa with a disorder of the spine; 
and whose letters of querulous complaint during his ab- 
sence continued to reveal the decline of her Tong im- 
paired frame. When he remembered that it was now 
three months since he had been favoured with a letter 
from Mortlake, Sir Henry almost trembled to approach 
tVoL. I. 8 


84 


THE SEPARATE 


the residence of his sister. She had lost her husband i 
during his absence from England. — Good, easy, snoozy, j 
boozy, feather-bed Mr. Delafield had gone to sleep in j 
the family vault among his fathers, instead of his arm- 
chair among his children; and there is something mourn- 
ful in approaching a mansion where the funeral achieve- 
ment of its master greets us on the wall, in lieu of his ' 
extended hand in the parlour. Mrs. Delafield had been I 
nearly two years a widow; and on so feeble a constitu- 
tion the inroads of affliction could not but be appalling. 

On arriving at the beautiful villa, whose lawn would 
have formed a park for any continental chateau from 
Calais to Prague, Well wood was informed that his sis- 
ter was absent; that on the receipt of the letter an- 
nouncing his arrival, she had “rode into town.” 

“Ridden into town!” mechanically reiterated Sir 
Henry to the gray-headed butler, who stood with 
smiling investigation examining his sunburnt face and 
toil-worn person. “ How unlucky that I did not no- 
tice the carriage!” 

“My mistress was a hoss-back, sir,” replied old 
Drummton, “but when she larns as you have come out 
to visit her, no doubt she will instantly set off back 
again. Missus was on her bay mare, which doesn’t 
make above an hour and ten minutes work of it from 
Hyde Park Corner, to Richmond Hill.” 

Sir Henry Wellwood looked aghast. “Mrs. Dela- 
field mZe to London, Drummton! — Mrs* Delafield en- 
dure the fatigue of — — ” 

“Why, bless you. Sir Henry,” said the old man, “it 
i^ just that very fatigue that has set poor dear missus 
on her legs again. You see, sir, just afore master’s 
last illness there' was a new-fashioned doctor called in; 
and /le said as all Mrs. Delafield’s dispersition rose 
from lying on a sofa, reading o’ novels and drinking o’ 
physic. And he ordered Missus to throw away all the 
draughts and the new books from the library", and to 
buy herself a stout hack as would trot five miles a day 
afore breakfast; and bless you, sir, she’s been a dif- 
ferent thing ever since. Missus drinks a power o’ por- 
ter, sir, and she’s as stout as an Irish charwoman.” 

Sir Henry could not repress a smile at this extraordi- 
nary statement. “Poor dear ” Mrs. Delafield trotting 


‘MAINTENANCE. 


85 

five miles on a stout hack! “But how was my sister 
ever persuaded, Druinmton, to make the attempt? — I 
■should as soon have thought of her ascending Mont 
Blanc.” 

“ Why, bless yon, sir, so long as it was any thing or- 
ilered by a doctor, missus was sure to take it. After 
she’d been a swallowing draughts Of arsenic, and hem- 
lock, and henbane, and a power of other poisons to 
please ’em for many a long year, sure it wasn’t much 
Worse to get on a good horse, and eat a good dinner like 
other people?” 

Yet not even When the copiously enlarged edition of 
his sister strided into the room in her^ riding habit, — 
having, according to Drummton’s prediction, trotted 
back from town as fast as a punchy cob would carry 
her, — could Sir Henry Well wood believe that he beheld 
the pale, tremulous, chilly, half-alive, Mrs. Delafield in 
the comely dame before him. He forgot the forty horse 
power of quackery over a female imagination. He for- 
got that she had been a victim to the successively pre- 
vailing disorders of liver, spine, and digestion. He for- 
got, or perhaps knew not, that hard exercise and hard 
fare w’ere the hobbies of Sir Jacob Collingbury, the last 
new fashionable Esculapius; aqd that half the expiring 
and declining finerlady invalids in town had been sud- 
denly torn from their pillows, seated upon high-trotting 
horses, and fed on barley bread and raw beefsteaks j that 
a few had expired in the attempt, while ninety-five per 
hundred recovered their health and understanding. 

“And so, my dearest Well wood, you are really come 
to. live among us again,” said the portly equestrian, in 
a sort of hail-fellow-well-met tone, wholly unrecognise- 
able as the panting whisper he had formerly felt it so 
difficult to understand. “Collingbury tells me your 
regiment is ordered home; and I trust, now you have 
overcome all your unpleasant feelings, you will give up 
the army and settle once more at Well wood Abbey. 
Collingbury says it is much the wisest course for you.” 

“Collingbury! — Who is.Collingbury?” 

“Have you never heard of the famous Sir Jacob Col- 
lingbury, the most eminent practitioner of the day? He 
cured poor dear Lady Nodham of her asthma just before 
she died, and ” 


86 


THE SEPARATE 


“ But surely, my dearest sister, in your present ro- 
bust state of health, you have done with the doctors?’^ 

“Done with them? — My dear Henry, I never w'as in 
so alarming a condition, as at the present moment ” 

“ With that brilliant complexion?’’ 

“ Which indicates plethora 1 — How do I know that I 
may not be on the verge of apoplexy?” 

“And that portly person ” 

“Which plainly demonstrates dropsy: — Collingbury 
owned to me yesterday morning, that he hardly knew 
what to make of me.” 

“ You will find it difficult to alarm me under your 
present aspect. But now tell me about Bella and her 
husband.” 

“What can I tell you about them? — She is so happy 
that she hardly ever finds leisure to write to mej and 
Collingbury desires me to be studious in avoiding se- 
dentary occupations, so that our correspondence has al- 
most dropped. I have promised to take Blanche and 
the boys dowji to Allstone Hall for the holydays.” 

“And have you no tidings, then, of our mutual 
friends?” 

“Why — a — let me seel — I think you knew the Car- 
ringfords? When Collingbury looked in yesterday morn-* 
ing on his way to Windsor ” 

“My very dear sister,” said Sir Henry, interrupting 
her, and taking a seat beside her on the sofa, “ can you 
not spare my dignity, and conjecture that I am dying 
to question you concerning Lady Well wood ? ” 

Mrs. Delafield was always interested by the word 
“dying,” — but on this occasion she had not much to 
relate. “I have only seen her twice since you em- 
barked for Spain,” said she. “Once I passed her on 
the stairs at the dentist’s, and a slight bow marked our 
recognition; and once a^ain I saw her at the evening 
lecture at St. George’s Church. That was about eight 
months ago.” 

“And how was she looking, and who accompanied 
her?” 

“There were two lady-like looking girls with her. 
As I wrote you word, that nasty Miss Broadsden re- 
sided with her only a few months after Lady Mande- 


MAINTENANCE. 


87 


'Ville’s death; and as to her appearance, I must confess, 
I thought it very alarming.” 

“Indeed,” cried Sir Henry, starting up. 

“The extreme brilliancy of her complexion looked 

to me extremely hectic; and CoHingbury thinks ” 

“ Collingbury !” pshawed poor Wellwood. 

“ — that from all he saw of her last autumn, there 
must be something radically wrong about her lungs.” 

“Oh! Sir Jacob Collingbury then attends Lady 
Wellwood?” said Sir Henry, re-seating himself and 
growing forbearing, in the hope of eliciting some intel- 
ligence respecting the idol of bis soul. “ I fancied she 
no longer resided in town.” 

•^“She has a cottage at Putney, a place called Myrtle 
Bank; — much too near the river to be wholesome.” 

“I thought she would not be able to tear herself ef- 
fectually from London.” n 

“She might just as well bury herself among the 
wolds, like Arabella; for I understand she rarely mixes 
in society. When I lost poor dear Mr. Delafield, she 
had the decency to send here once or twice to inquire 
after me; but that is all the intercourse I have had or 
wish to have with such a person.” 

“ Such a person ?”— interrupted 'Sir Henry, with a 
rising colour. He never could bear to hear Henrietta 
abused by any one but himself. 

“If all Collingbury says about her be true, — and I’m 
sure I don’t know what reason we have to disbelieve it 
— Ah! here is luncheon!” cried the- buxom dame, as 
.Drummton threw open the folding doors of the dining 
room. “My dear Harry! how gratified you must feel, 
after all your privations, by the sight of a good, whole 
some, Englisli beefsteak!” 


; 8 * 


88 


THE SEPARATE 


CHAPTER XIII. 


It was a trying moment, that which found him 
Standing alone beside his desolate hearth, 

Where all his household gods lay. shattered round him. 

Braow. 

Sir Hekry saw that it was a hopeless case. Although 
Mrs. Delafield’s disparaging mode of allusion to his wife 
tended to excite his curiosity, he judged it expetlientto 
wait the arrival of his own dear, rational Arabella, be- 
fore he suffered himself to be irritated by premature as- 
persions; and tried, mean while, to inteiest himself in 
the increased latitude of her sister, and longitude of her 
daughter and sons. 

But his own dear, rational Arabella had now a gouty 
fox-hunting husband to share Sir Henry’s claims upon 
her affections; and instead of hastening up to town, as 
lie expected, was compelled to beg her brother would 
visit her at Allstone Hall, so soon as he could termi- 
nate his business in London. At the end of a week 
and a long journey, he had, accordingly, the happiness 
of finding her engrossed by the arrangement of Tom’s 
footstool, and Tom’s easy chair; and in spite of those 
unsatisfactory accessaries to the scene, the meeting be- 
tween the three was replete with gratifying associa- 
tions. 

“How well you are looking, with your bronzed face 
and slim figure!” cried Arabella, contemplating with 
pride the noble person of her brother, rendered more 
manly and dignified than ever by athletic exercise and 
military discipline. “You are quite a different person 
from ‘Captain Wellwood,’ or the carpet knight of Well- 
wood Abbey.” 

“ I am indeed a different person from the hot-headed^ 


MAINTENAJSXE. 


89 


hot-hearted fellow you used to be so fond of. But you 
must love me still, Bella! for though wonderfully 
changed, — though chilled into a mere automaton, — I 
cannot dispense with Allstone’s regard, and your affec- 
tion.” 

“You will have no need,” cried Allstone, from his 
easy chair. “Believe me, Harry, your absence has 
been the only draw-back on our happiness, I will not 
tell you how often I have vexed Arabella by cursing 
your obstinacy in setting off for Spain without one word 
of warning to your friends. But now we have you here 
once more; and I trust you won’t again be in a hurry 
to run from a lesser evil to a greater. What has a man 
with a landed estate of twelve thousand a-year, to do in 
the army? You have duties to your country which 
ought to keep you at home.” 

“And tM7//-^The skeleton of'my regiment is on its 
passage to England, and I^have no taste for the moral 
extinction of passing three or four years in country 
quarters.” 

“I fancy, Harry, you are sadly wanted at the Abbey. 
Roddington complains terribly of the incursions of the 
Goths under this famous Mr. Pilaster of yours.” 

“And Mr. Pilaster of Roddington. I have received 
quires of mutual complaints during my absence. But 
I shall be there in a week or two, to redress grievances 
and punish trespasses.” 

“The new wing was quite finished when we were in 
Staffordshire last autumn,” observed Mrs. Allstone. 
“ It requires nothing now but the upholsterers.” 

“I shall leave them to the discipline of your little 
Tom, some twenty years hence. The house is too 
large for me already; and I dare say I shall be very 
little there.” 

“Then why have you been throwing away fifteen 
thousand pounds, for the benefit of Pilaster and Co.?” 

“It was always my father’s intention to complete 
the Abbey: and I conceive it to be every man’s business 
to do his best, in his generation, for the benefit of his 
family place. Besides, I was not sorry for the excuse 
afforded me by the disorder of building, to absent my- 
self from the spot. It would have been very embar- 


THE SEPARATE 


DO 

•rassing to meet all my neighbours while their minds 
•were harping on my domestic misfortunes.” 

, “^From that annoyance you have nothing farther to 
-apprehend,” observed Tom. “ The. Shoreharns are done 
up, and starving in Italy on a few thousands a-yeac; 
.and Lady Maria Rutherlord is now a regular Chelten- 
ham loo- player.” 

“And better still,” said Sir Henry Wellwood. “I 
have myself grown indifterent to the opinions of the 
world. Four years of hard campaigning have brought 
me to my senses. I care now only for realities, and no 
longer afflict myself with imaginary evils.” 

“ Bravo!” cried Tom. “At this rate you will re- 
concile me to your Quixotic flight to the Peninsula.” 

“You will find I have brought back something better 
than a few ugly scars, in the shape of moderated resent- 
inents and a subdued mind.” 

“My dear Harry,” said^Allstone, “henceforward I 
■shall hold Wellington the greatest general under the 
sun. The truth is, that no two persons ever trifled 
away their happiness so grievously as you and Lady 
■Wellwood. Irascible and obstinate as the devil, neither 
of you would listen to a word of ad vice j or you might 
still be living together in all the comfort and respecta- 
bility of domestic happiness;” ' 

“It is better as it is,” replied Wellwood, sternly; 
“I have never regretted, and have nothing to regret in 
the business.” ® 

“Never was there any thing more gratuitously ab- 
surd than your separation,” continued Allstonc, with- 
out listening. “Both were captious — both irritable. 
— She had been coaxed up by her aunt, and you 
by my silly little wife there, into fancying yourselves 
entitled to unqualified consideration ; — she chose to be 
a goddess, and you a god.— But what then?— There 
was worship enough to be had in the world for both of 
you . Sir Henry Wellwood might have exercised his au- 
thority at the Quarter Sessions and county meetings 

and her ladyship have entertained a pet toady, such as 
that horrid old Broadsden. In short, there was nothing 
to prevent you living comfortably on together,— tiftin^ 

; and making it up again like , all married people; and 


MAINTENANCE. 


91 


owning that the atmosphere of life is all the sweeter for 
an occasional storm.” 

“ Such is not my notion of matrimonial comfort,” 
said Sir Henry, gravely: “nor could any thing have 
rendered my life happy with such a person as Lady Man- 
deville’s niece. My error lay in the original choice; I 
ought to have known better than to expect merit from a 
woman whose pretty face was connected with so shal- 
low a head, and so shallow a heart. Never was woman 
so mischieviously educated as Lady Wellwood.” 

“I thought you said just now, you had left all your 
resentments in Spain?” 

“ And so I have! — Believe me, my dear Allstone, 
there is not a person on earth I regard with more 
thorough indifference than the lady whom the law still 
compels me to call my wife. Were it not that a regard 
for my own honour requires me to be in some degree 
acquainted with her proceedings, I should never trouble 
myself to ask a single question concerning her. She 
is the very last woman capable of interesting my feel- 
ings!” 

‘"‘You had much to exasperate you,” observed Mrs. 
Allstone, in a low voice; “ but we were all to blame. 
There needed only a judicious adviser to set the whole 
affair in a proper light.” 

“ Ay, ay !”— cried Tom. “ Thank God ! my darling 
Bell was no heiress. Those separate maintenance clauses 
are ju?t so many incentives to insubordination; al- 
lowing every perverse, peevish, pettish wife to ensure 
her personal independence at the expense of her hus- 
band.” 

“ Lady Mandeville bequeathed her whole property 
to Henrietta,” observed Mrs. Allstone. “ She has now 
five thousand a year.” 

“ So I understand. She was arrogant enough with 
half as much; I suppose she makes a great figure in so- 

“\iady Wellwood is very popular, and prodigiously 
admired; but I do not fancy her increase of fortune has 
much to do with the interest she has managed to ex- 
cite.” . , . 

“No, no! — she is a victim, — a sweet, injured, in- 
teresting victim!” exclaimed Allstone. Lady Mande- 


9^ 


The separate 


ville and the long-nosed thief old Letitia contrived to 
make the world believe you used your wife deucedly ill; 
and the defendant being absent, judgment was suffered 
to go by default. The first spring in town after you 
joined your regiment, I pleaded myself hoarse in your 
behalf; while Mrs. Delafield devoted full twelve months 
to expounding the injuries undergone by “poor dear 
Harry.” But it would not do. — People had already 
settled that you were a monster: and a monster I fear 
you still remain.” 

As they please! — Her ladyship is plausible enough 
to ‘make the worse appear the better cause,’ ” said the 
calm philosopher, swelling with indignation. 

“And then she certainly is devilishly handsome,’^’ 
_cried Tom. “ I never saw a woman so improved ! Her 
figure so much filled out, and her countenance so much 
more impressive.” 

“ She was such a mere girl when she married,” said 
Arabella. “ At twenty neither mind nor person is ful- 
^ heard many peaple cite Lady 
vVellwood as one of the most agreeable women and en- 
tertaining companions in England; and when I knew 
her, she had certainly no title to such a reputation.” 

IJie Dorntons, I suppose?” 

“ >io! I seldom see Mrs. Dornton; and never with- 
out hearing from her something ill-natured concerning 
her former friend. The quarrel with Miss Letitia 
Broadsden brought to light circumstances that could 
^t but dissolve all connexion between the parties; and 
Henrietta has no intercourse with any of them. The 
people who praise her to me are chiefly friends and ac- 
quaintances she has made in the world.” 

“ Lady Wellwood can be charming enough in a ball- 
room,” said Sir Henry, in a tone of pique. 1 am not sur- 
prised that she increases the number of her partisans. I 
only trust that I may never have the misfortune to meet 
or be molested by her again. A separate maintenance 
IS at least some counterbalance to a matrimonial blun- 
der; but I have to grieve that the law refuses its en- 
Iranchis^ent to two people already disunited in the 
sight of Heaven.” 

Allstone and his wife saw that he was vexedj and' 


MAINTENANCE. 


considerately refrained from farther allusion to the sub- 
ject. Sir Henry was so dear to them both as a friend 
and brother that they could not but enter into all his 
prejudices and feelings; and since it was too late to ren.- 
der any assistance in reconciling the dislocated couple, 
they judged it better to promote his future happiness 
without reference to the past. As soon as the gout would 
permit, they accompanied him to the Abbey; with a 
view to divert his mind from the painful reminiscence 
connected with the spot, and to diminish the awkward- 
ness of his meeting with his country neighbours. The 
sight of Arabella’s pretty little girl and boy rolling 
about on the lawn, certainly imparted a new feature, 
and a prospective charm to the place; and with some- 
thing to look forward to in the education of little Tom 
(whom he already adopted as his heir) the poor solitary 
Baronet was in some measure relieved from his isola- 
tion. 

Even amid the annoyance of investigating the prac- 
tical treachery of the great Pilaster to his own plans 
and projects; even while engaged in granting audience 
to old lloddington’s complaints, and audit to his ac- 
counts; even while compelled to admit that the new wing 
was a beautiful superfluity, and that the disorder effected . 
in the domain by the squadron of vagabonds engaged 
in its construction, was a serious vexation, he had still 
a secret moment of leisure^ to devote to memories of 
the past, and mournful anticipations of the future. He 
occasionally even forgot the w'ife with whom he had 
passed a few \veeks so miserably at the Abbey, to re- 
member only the bride who embellished his first few 
months of marriage, in that happiest of homes. 

One of the numerous charges contained in his des- 
patches from Spain to Mr. Pilaster, had commanded 
the demolition of a rustic building in the pleasure- 
ground, commenced under Henrietta’s auspices; while 
the flower garden planned by herself, had been dug up 
at his suggestion, and another spot selected for the com- 
mencement of a new one. But without confessing it 
to himself, he now regretted his hasty act of destruc- 
tion; and often wished that some trace remained of that 
epoch of his happiness, which was not the less precious 
for having proved evanescent. 


94 


THE SEPARATE 


Nothing commemorative of Lady Welhvood in fact 
was left at the Abbey. All her property, — every trifle 
she could call her own, — had been scrupulously des- 
patched to her at the time of signature of the deed of 
separation; and even a trifle she could not call her own, 
a splendid full-length portrait from the pencil of Law- 
rence, having been formally demanded by Lady Man- 
devil le through the medium of her solicitor, was des- 
patched to her in silent scorn by the injured husband. 

A few unimportant objects discovered by Mrs. All- 
stone on her arrival at the Abbey, were carefully re- 
moved, in her anxiety to spare the feelings of her bro- 
ther; and Sir Henry had cause to doubt whether the 
dream of his married life were not a mere coinage of 
the brain; — whether he had in truth been the lover, — 
the bridegroom, — the husband, — the aggrieved and re- 
senting husband, of the beautiful Henrietta Broughton. 
The new wing, standing, uninhabited in all the ghast- 
liness of its white freestone, appeared erected as a 
monument to his departed happiness! 


CHAPTER XIV. 

What a bridge 
Of glass I walk upon, over a river 
Of certain ruin, — mine own weighty fears 
Cracking what would support me; and those helps 
Which confidence lends others, are from me • 

Banish'd by doubts and wilful jealousy. 

Massikger. 

The arrival of Mrs. Delafield,her school-girl daugh-^ 
ter, and two yahoos of sons, wrought no change in the 
discomfort of his feelings. There was nothing in his 
sister’s society to obviate the loneliness of Ins’ heart, 
or supply the vacancy caused by Arabella’s departure 
for Yorkshire with her husband. It is true the widow 
often tried to comfort him with an assurance that Col- 
lingbury had a very bad opinion of Lady Wellwood’s 
constitution, and that the chances of survivorship were 


MAINTENANCE. 


95 


all in his favourj but she never failed to add, that per- 
haps, after all, the irritation of Henrietta’s ill-health 
might have had some share in stimulating the irritations 
"of Henrietta’s ill-temper. Poor dear Mrs. Delafield che- 
rished the homely, but most authentic doctrine, that 
much of the misery of the human mind arises from the 
body, — and the larger portion of domestic uneasiness, 
from undenounced dyspepsia. Goose as she was, she 
was wise enough to know that half the virtues of our 
nature depend on the soundness of our digestion. 

However anxious to bear her brother company in his 
solitude, the attractions of Sir Jacob soon magnetised her 
back to Mortlakej and though her visit was followed by 
those of an infinite variety of guests; though a succession 
of country neighbours, brother officers, and brother fox- 
hunters, crowded the Abbey, — Sir Henry found it im- 
possible to create to himself a factitious interest in the 
scene. To him, all was vexation of spirit-^all weari- 
ness — all desolation. The continent was not then, as 
now, open as a refuge for the sorrowful or sinful of 
Great Britain. People were obliged to remain at home, 
and chew the cud of their griefs, or bear the brunt of 
their errors. But for Arabella’s entreaties, he would 
have solicited a staff appointment, and returned to the 
Peninsula; — but for Roddington’s imploring face, he 
would have consigned the Abbey to dust and darkness, 
— the spiders and the tax-gatherers, — and pitched his 
lonely tent by the side of a happier stream than the 
waters of the Trent. 

At Christmas, he made his escape to Allstone Hall; 
at Easter, he flew to London. A metropolis is, after 
all, the best retreat for persons struggling against men- 
tal vexation. The definition of Paris as “ the spot of 
all others where we can best dispense with happiness,” 
is applicable, in a comparative degree, to every great 
city. In town, people are too busy with their own af- 
fairs to be inquisitive or commentative on those of other 
people. Not a soul at Brookes’s cared whether or why 
Sir Henry Wellwood was separated from his wife; not 
a woman at Almack’s was at all curious to inquire if he 
regretted the former idol of his soul, or the impossibili- 
ty of providing his soul with a new one. He re-ap- 
peared in society with some cclcit^ indeed, as a lion 
t VoL. I. ■ 9 


THE SEPARATE 


90 

from the walls of Badajoz. -In those days, peninsular 
associations had not been guitarred into contempt. It 
was then the fashion of the fashionable to array them- 
selves in Spanish brown; clasp their girdles with Bar- 
rosa eagles; and crowd round the annunciator of the 
last important victory, as if his despatch-box, like Pan- 
dora’s, kept Hope a prisoner under its patent Bramah 
lock. Sir Henry was gratified, if not satisfied, to find 
his popularity considerable. He was as much courted 
in the great world as if the defunct Lady Mandeville’s 
philippics had never upbraided him as a monster. 

Por the first week or two after establishing himself 
for the season, it was a matter of some doubt to him 
whether he had courage to hazard an encounter with 
Lady Well wood, by venturing into the great world; 
and at one or two balls where he nrade his embrowned 
visage apparent, he certainly directed his eyes more 
anxiously and more frequently towards the door than 
was explicable on any other grounds but those of appre- 
hension of her ladyship’s arrival. He had summoned 
all his magnanimity in expectation of such an incident, 
by assuring himself twenty times a day that it would be 
much better they should meet at once, in order to prove 
to their friends that they were now as strangers, or that 
it was unnecessary to pay any particular regard to their 
enmities; — that although it was not desirable to invite 
them absolutely to dine at the same table, they might 
appear in the same ball-room without injury or annoy- 
ance to either. But all his philosophy was mustered in 
vain. Either at Sir Jacob Collingburv’s suggestion, or 
from some equally rational motive, Lady Well wood 
carefully abstained from the dissipation of the season; 
while his curiosity daily increased concerning her mo- 
tives for seclusion. 

At length, but not very satisfactorily, his mind was 
enlightened on the subject. One day as he was perusing 
the morning papers at Brookes’s, his heart and soul en- 
grossed by the details of the elevation of the drapeau 
blanc in the city of Bordeaux, he found himself fami- 
liarly tapped on the shoulder; and in the bloated, half- 
bald, but doubly whiskered dandy who had perpetrated 
the familiarity, he had no difficulty in recognising the 
expanded presence of Frederick Dornton!— His mar- 


MAINTENANCE. 


9i7 


riage with Helena had long since set at rest all question 
of offence between them: nay, Sir Henry was aware 
that Dornton, at the period of their separation, had ra- 
ther sought to pacify than foment the discord between 
himself and his wife. 

“All! Well wood, how — a — e? — glad to see you back 
again. Deucedly cut up, I perceive, by long marches 
and short commons, — breakfasting on a pair of stewed 
Hobys, and dining on a haunch of jackass. My dear 
fellow, I congratulate you on your return to a good din- 
ner!” 

“Thank you! From the accounts in to-day’s paper, 
I am inclined to hope that our whole army may shortly 
indulge their patriotic predilection for roast beef.” 

“I’ll hold you five to two that the Allies eat their 
dinner in Paris before this day month?” 

“1 never bet; but ” 

“ Upon my soul this crisis is inexpressibly awful,” 
said Dornton, who had seated himself in an armchair, 
and was extending his rowly-powly limbs as far as they 
were stretchable. “ Only conceive fora moment, my 
dear Well wood, what it will be to have the contineht 
thrown open again! — We of the present generation, for 
instance, have never really dined in our lives. I was 
but a lad at the peace of Amiens; but, by Jove! sir, 
had I entertained the slightest presentiment of the pro- 
gress of public affairs, I woufj have run away from 
Eton, at the risk of expulsion, rather than forfeit my 
only chance of tasting a correct plate of soup.” 

“Surely there are plenty of good French cooks in 
London?” 

“Ah! bah, bah, bah! — Science in cooking, my dear 
fellow, is like Burgundy, — it won’t travel: — the bou- 
quet evaporates. No genuine Frenchman can stand 
the fogs of this climate. I dined only yesterday with 
my brother Sandys, who bought off the Duke of Succu- 
lent’s rascal Bechamel, by a deuced long annuity; and 
by Jove, sir, his omelette was as heavy as his sa- 

lary. The dinner might have been sent up by any John 
Smith or Dick Brown in the kingdom.” 

“Well, well!” said Sir Henry, rising to get rid of 
him, “ for yowr sake I rejoice to perceive that Napo- 
leon’s day is done. Should peace be concluded, 1 shall’ 


08 


THE SEPARATE 


certainly be among the first to visit the French capitalf 
where I trust to find you drowning all national animosi- 
ties in a mess of pottage.” 

“I’m afraid I sha’nH manage to drown my wife in a 
mess of any kind. She’s my worst animosity.” 

“Indeed! I fancied you a mirror of domestic happi- 
ness.” 

“A mirror? — ^yes! — and what is so easily broken? — 
You have the comfort of knowing Mrs. Frederick Dorn- 
ton, and can therefore appreciate mine.” 

“ Mrs. Etherington was rather the friend of — of — 
Lady Wellwood than mine.’’ 

“ So I might have guessed by her fluency in traducing 
your wife. Oh! my dear Wellwood! how — how was 
it you so cleverly managed to get rid of your conjugal 
incumbrances? — For my part, I would give Mrs. Dorn- 
ton any thing (except a handsome allowance) if she 
would live with me on the happy terms that prevail be- 
tween you and her ladyship.” 

“Cannot you persuade some Miss Letitia Broadsden 
to come and maae mischief between you, — and some 
exquisite Frederick to whisper resistance in her ear?” 

“ No one ever condescends to whisper in Helena’s, 
unless it be the ‘familiar toad’ who squatted close at 
the ear of Eve. As to Letitia, ever since Lady Well- 
wood detected her misdoings and presented her with a 
bouquet d' adieu, she has carried herself and her five far- 
things per annum to Cheltenham, where there are al- 
ways sick dowagers to be toadied.” 

“Lady Wellwood found her, perhaps, too observant 
a companion?” 

“Too fond of circulating her observations.” 

“Yet I should have fancied her eternal tittle tattle, 
in a life of so much seclusion as Lady Wellwood’s — 

“ Seclusion ? ” 

“She seems to have quite renounced the world. I 
have been every where and have met her no where.” 

“Perhaps Lady Wellwood might be tempted to de- 
fine your every where as ‘no where.’ I suspect you 
have never yet found yourself included in her magic 
circle.” 

“ I have never seen her, for instance, at Dorset House, 
or at Lady Armagh’s. ” 


MAINTENANCE. 


99 


^‘‘Westminster Hall, or vSt. Paul’s cathedral! You 
don’t fancy a woman of Lady Wellwood’s high fashion 
would venture into such mobs as those-.f* — You might as 
well expect to meet at a Sunday conversazione at the 
Marchioness’s.” 

“I remember the time,” said Sir Henry, very much 
affronted, “when Lady Wellwood considered herself 
fortunate in being distinguished by Lady Armagh’s no- 
tice.” 

“Ay, ay! very likely; — that was when she was only 
the wife of a country baronet: — Dorset House, and the 
Armagh menagerie is always filled with such people! — 
Times are altered now; Lady Wellwood is become a 
distinguee. She would as soon think of attending a 
ball at the White Conduit House as at the common run 
of Lady So-and-sos with whom it may suit you and me 
to associate. ” 

Sir Henry looked fierce; but in his anxiety to learn 
something authentic of his wife and her proceedings, 
contrived to tante down his indignation. 

“Lady Wellwood, my dear fellow, is one of the 
Etherials, — quite petit comite goddess; — probably has 
not dined for years at any table where more than eight 
guests are admitted, or been at a party which might not 
be held in her own boudoir. Nothing can be more re- 
fined than the shrine at which she is worshipped. By 
Jove, sir, I don’t believe a woman in London is so much 
admired as your wife.” 

“Like the oracles of old, she seems to derive much 
of her importance from judicious mystery. At least, I 
shall be spared an encounter with a person so distin- 
guished and distinguishing;— probably we shall never 
meet again.” 

“Your orbits are certainly very different, but do you 
know Lord Ragley?” 

it A — a— no! He is separated from his Wife, I think?” 

“From his, but not from yours; — Lady Wellwood- 
IS the idol of the Ragley set. And perhaps you are ac- 
quainted with the 3mung Duke of Durham?” — 

A— a— I rather think not; he is just come of age?” 

“ I don’t fancy Lady Wellwood ever considered him 
in the minority. He follows her about like a pet spa- 
niel.” 


100 


The separate 


“This is the first I have heard of it,” cried Sif Hfeil* 
ry, piqued into frankness, “ surely it is not much talked 
t)f?” 

Talked of? — Oh noj—it is only such people as your 
Armaghs and Dorsets who get gossiped about in the 
newspapers and the coteries. YoUr Ragleys and Dur- 
hams are personages far more 09cult5 they are never 
heard of by ears profane. That is one among many ad- 
vantages of the petit comites. I should not be half so 
anxious to get rid of Mrs. Domton, only 1 want to creep 
out of the populace of Armaghites, and in to the select 
vestries: tnere you have the best eating, the best talk^ 
ing, and the best company, on the easiest terms.” 

“ I should have fancied the former would suffice you,” 
said Sir Henry, dancing at the bloated rotundity of his 
companion. 

“The eating? — oh, ay? — but I never thoroughly en- 
joy a good dinner, unless while I feed I have a clever 
man or two to listen to, and a pretty woman or so, to 
look at. You have no notion what flavour Lady Well- 
wood’s blue eyes impart to a cutlet at Durham’s.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


Consideration like an angel came, 

And whipp’d the ofiending Adam out of her'; 

- Leaving her body as a Paradise 

T’ envelop and contain celestial spirits. 

SHAKtfPBA&«. 

But enough of clubs and battles, despatches and bills 
of fare. We have loitered too long with the heroes of 
our tale, considering that its heroine was left in the un- 
satisfactory predicament of a visit to Sandgate,^in com- 
pany with Lady Mandeville and Miss Broadsden, an 
asthmatic poodle and a cockatoo. 

It is not to be imagined that such companionship was 
Iparticularlyr pleasing to a person of Lady Wellwood’s 


MAINTENANCE. 


iol 


Vivacious temperament; (is not that the circulating li- 
brary designation of a high temper?) — or that the excess 
of sycophancy with winch she was assailed by Letitia, 
could fail, after the lapse of a certain number of months, 
to nauseate her palate. There is an acme when even 
exaggeration becomes at fault. After Sir Henry Well- 
wood had been fairly or unfairly established as a Mon- 
ster, it was very difficult to vary the shades of his mon- 
strosity into deeper turpitude. He could be proved 
nothing worse in the gradation of crime, unless a thief 
nr an incendiary; and Miss Broadsden did not exactly 
wish her accusations to extend to felony. 

In the first fermentation of her fury, Henrietta had, 
it is true, been well pleased to secure so warm a parti- 
san, in order to hear her husband unceasingly reviled 
as the worst of human kind; but 

surfeiting, 

The appetite did sicken, and so die !— 

She grew weary of the cuckoo song of the parasite; and 
long before Lady Mandeville 

surfeiting. 

Of lampreys stewed, did sicken, and so die,— - 

liad made up her mind to play the hunted beaver with 
Miss Broadsden; present her with an annuity, and get 
rid of her society. While Sir Henry was storming the 
bastions of Badajoz, Henrietta was braving the domes- 
tic storm of this second separation; a separation de coiys 
et de biens from Letitia the long-nosed. 

No sooner was “ the mildewed ear” removed from its 
wholesome brother,” — no sooner did Lady Wellwood, 
who was already secured by the decree of nature from 
the evil precepts Of her aiint, throw off.the pernicious 
influence of Miss Bro'adsdetiV presence, than she be- 
gan, by slow and painful degrees, to discover how 
grievously she had trifled with her own happiness and 
respectability. Now that the chorus of spinsters and 
dowagers was out of hearing, — now that Helena was 
busy in venting her malicious sneers upon her new hus- 
band instead of her old friend,— now that the dandy had 


102 


THE SEPARATE 


manoeuvred himself into Mrs. Etherington’s jointure, 
and the toady into a welcome addition to her modicum, 
— now, in short, that the perverse wife was at a dis- 
tance from bad advisers and bad advice, — she saw that 
she had been duped, miserably duped, not only by mis- 
chievous friends, but by her own bad temper. She 
could scarcely believe, as she wandered meditating along 
the sea shore, that she had suffered the waywardness of 
a moment of spleen to sever her from the man who loved 
her, the man she lovedj — to expose his life to the fatal 
chances of war, and her own peace ot mind to the fatal 
certainty of endless irritation. Restless and unhappy, 
she recalled the days of her Tunbridge sensibilities, of 
}jer courtship, of her wedlock; the happy period when 
her smiles and tears were watched by the eye of affec- 
tion, as if emulating the importance of some heavenly 
dispensation; wlien a shade of care appeared upon her 
brow only to be dispelled by the tenderest soothing; 
when an implied wish was obeyed as the most peremp- 
tory of comniands. 

But this was not all. These reminiscences might 
have arisen from the same peevish selfishness that ac- 
tuated her dissensions with her husband; and Henrietta 
was already swayed by a higher — a nobler influence. 

To every uncorrupted mind, the lesson aflbrded by its 
first contact with mortality — its first insight into the ap- 
palling realities of the shroud, the bier, the funeral trap- 
pings, the yawning sepulchre— is inexpressibly awful; 
but with the vain and frivolous, the force of contrast 
redoubles the shock. Until she hung in contrition over 
the coffin of her flighty, worldly-minded aunt, — until 
the chill earthiness of Lady Mandeville’s brow palsied 
her very heart as she imprinted a farewell kiss upon the 
dead,^the terrors of the grave, the responsibilities of 
eternity, had never assumed their true importance in 
hci eyes. -|hey^ had danced^ before her imafi^ination 
without arrestiifg the trivial courses of her care ”r. The 
heiress,— the courted, the beautiful heiress,— dreamed 
not of the worm and the dust; the bride,— the lovely 
flattered, worshipped bride,— had not a thought for the 
all searching tribunal of God. But the hour of warn- 
ing came at last:— and now, like Felix, she trembled, 
rebuked by the revelation of a judgment to cornel—' 


MAINTENANCE. 


lOS 


We are taught to believe that in fear is the beginning 
of wisdom; and it soon became evident that the transi- 
tion in Lady Wellwood’s mind from terror to repent- 
ance, from repentance to penitence, from penitence to 
amendment, was sure without being slow. A very 
cursory inspection of her own heart, proved it to have 
been ungrateful, hard, proud, and selfish. She saw that 
her past life had been brightened with the favour of 
Providence, and that she had rendered back a curse for 
every blessing; — that she was responsible for the 
wretchedness of the husband she had sworn to honour, 
and for neglected duties beyond her own powers of 
computation. 

It was fortunate for Lady Wellwood that at so critical 
a moment of her life, she did not fall into the hands of 
fanatics. It is from spiritual ignorance and self-abase- 
ment such as hers, the Joanna Southcotes and Edward 
Irvings mould their disciples; and it may be considered 
a farther illustration of the auspiciousness of her desti- 
nies, that her devotion carried her no farther than the 
orthodox altar, — her contrition of soul no higher than 
an humble and sincere desire for the fulfilment of her 
duties. The time she had hitherto wasted was now de- 
voted to the improvement of her mind; — the fortune she 
had hitherto squandered, to the cause of humanity. 
While her husband was exposed to the perils of the pe- 
ninsular struggle, she could not endure to mingle with 
the gaudy mob of London society; and accordingly pur- 
chased a-villa at Putney, limited its circle of guests to 
the estimable and enlightened; and although, as de- 
scribed by Dornton, courted by the adulation of all the 
most distinguished members of the great world, admit- 
ted their influence sparingly, and enjoyed their diver- 
sions, like Lady Grace in the play, — “soberly.” 

Time, we know’, does wonders; and habits of reflec- 
tion confirm the miracles wrought by its schooling. 
The more Henrietta meditated on what she was and 
what she might have been, the more firmly established 
in her mind became the conviction of her own unworthi- 
ness. Satisfied that she had irrecoverably alienated the 
tenderness of her husband, the esteem of his sister, she 
still resolved that the measure of Meir excellence should 
ixe the standard of her ow’n improvement. Grateful to 


104 


THE SEPARATE 


Heaven that, though divided from the husband of her 
choice by the self-sought barrier of a separate mainte- 
nance, she was, at least, safe from the evil fortunes that 
had befallen the crafty Helena in becoming the wife of j 
the profligate Dorntonj — that though an object of scorn j 
to the family of Sir Henry Wellwood, she was still sur- 
rounded by admiring friends and attached dependants, 
— still young, still healthy, still prosperous enough to 
dispense the blessings of prosperity to others, — she now 
experienced no earthly anxiety except for the fate of 
the man her own perverseness had driven into exile. 

However disposed to shun the brilliant uproar of j 
London dissipation. Lady Wellwood did not affect to [ 
court a sullen seclusion; but in the choice of new con- | 
nexions,and selection from her old, nothing could be more 
remarkable than the preference she unconsciously be- 
trayed for such persons as were deeply interested in the 
fortunes of Wellington’s army; and for that ministerial 
circle which was secure of the earliest intelligence. 
Many a time did Henrietta array herself with trembling | 
hands for a dinner party, where she was invited to meet | 
some horse guards’ official or cabinet dignitary; many a 
time, after a night passed in sleepless terrors, did slie 
drive into town, and appear among the loungers in the 
Park, solely with a view to gather from its rumours 
some tidings of the progress of the war. While Mrs. 
Allstone was besieging the antechambers of the Duke 
of York, on occasion of the blundering despatch already 
adverted to. Lady Wellwood was on her knees in the 
solitude of her own chamber, beseeching Heaven with 
uplifted hands for him she imagined gone for ever. 

It may be doubted whether any wife, mother, or l 
daughter, of thij thousands to whom the issue of that i 
fatal struggle was as the fiat of their destiny, experi- 1 
enced deeper anguish of mind than preyed upon the I 
health and happiness of the admired Lady Wellwood. i 
While Sir Thomas Riddlesworth, and several other | 
men of distinction, to whom the young, beautiful, and I 
opulent Henrietta afforded at once an object of adora- 1 
tion and speculation, turned their investigations with ! 
singular anxiety towards the columns of the Gazette, i 
the alienated wife, — whose separate maintenance was 
supposed to estrange her from all interest in her hus- 


MAINTENANCE. 


105 


band’s destinies, — watched over the ominous record 
with an intensity of dismay beyond her fortitude to 
bear. 

Sometimes, indeed, the delay of despatches after the 
vague rumour of an engagement in which slie knew his 
brigade must be included, aggravated her terrors almost 
to a degree of insanity. Olher women were at liberty 
to seek consolation for their sorrows, other wives to dis- 
play their eagerness for intelligence. But dreading the 
evil interpretation of society, or rather cherishing at 
the bottom of her soul that miserable pride, that false 
shame which is the worst enemy of human virtue, — she 
felt it necessary to conceal her tears; to go about with 
a smiling countenance when her heart was distracted; 
to rush into society when solitude and silence would 
have been her chosen solace. At such moments, and 
during the suspense of an expected battle, she some- 
times resolved to write to Sir Henry, — to implore his 
forgiveness, acknowledge her fault, — and solicit one af- 
fectionate word of farewell, lest he should go down to 
the grave with a heart hardened against her. She would 
have given worlds but to touch the hand she had thrown 
from her with disgust; — for a glance — for a smile — from 
those beloved and loving eyes which she knew had looked 
upon her for the last time. To think of him — of her 
own Wellwood — exposed to the perils of the sword; 
wounded, — dying, — dead; — returned to the common 
dust, with the blood-saturated clay of a foreign country 
stamped in upon his mangled face! — And to feel that he 
had expired in the belief of her abhorrence, — of her en- 
mity; — it was too much! 

But when the day of safety came again, — when the 
lofty tale of Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, or Salainanca, 
bore the name of Sir Henry Wellwood recorded in the 
scroll of triumph instead of included in its fatal chroni- 
cle, when Henrietta’s heart began to sing for joy, and 
her whole frame to tremble with the rapture of release 
from her terrors, — she relapsed into deference to the 
world’s opinion;— persuaded that a woman who has de- 
manded and obtained a separation from her husband, is 
as much severed from his interests as if the grave al- 
ready divided them. She felt that she should be un- 


106 


THE SEPARATE 


justifiable in exposing herself to his contempt by any ap- 
peal to his tenderness. 

Under these circumstances, it may be imagined what 
consternation was excited in the soul of Lady Well- 
wood by the first telegraphic intelligence of the mighty 
triumph of Vittoria; — what rapture — what ecstasy — by 
the knowledge that Sir Henry himself was not only 
sate, but the herald of that glorious victory. For many 
hours she could not sufficiently recover her self-posses- 
sion to quit her own chamber^ for many more she could 
not dismiss from her lips ‘Hhe one loved name” so 
deeply connected with her past alarms, her present ex- 
ultation. But it was enough; — he was safe; — his regi- 
ment already on its passage home: — his immediate con- 
nexion with the army dissolved. She should at lengtii 
have leisure to be happy; — to eat, drink, sleep, ami 
breathe the breath of existence, secure from that fright- 
ful sword of Damocles so long suspended over her 
head. 

The next day, however, her emotions were of a less 
cheering nature. The flush of triumph had faded from 
her cheek; and on perusing in the newspapers various 
details of “the gracious notice bestowed by the Prince 
Regent on the gallant Sir Henry Wellwood;” “the 
prolonged audience granted to Lieut. Col. Sir Henry 
Wellwood by His Royal Highness the Commander-in- 
chief;” — “the cheers of the populace assembled round 
the hotel selected by the gallant officer for his residence,” 
— she could not but feel with humiliation that every hand 
in the metropolis was outstretched towards the harbin- 
ger of national triumph, excepting the one which had 
been pledged to him at the altar. Other eyes might 
pze upon him, — other hearts avow the anxieties they 
had undergone for him during his absence; — she alone 
must remain silent, and cold, and neglectful ! 

Then came the announcement that “Lieut. Col. Sir 
Henry Wellwood had devoted the morning to an inter- 
view with a near relative at Mortlake;” and last and 
worst, at the conclusion of a week, some of the cate- 
rers for public curiosity thought fit to regale their read- 
ers with a “curtailed abbreviation ” of the life of the 
newly arrived aide-de-camp. “Lieut. Col. Sir Henry 


MAINTENANCE. 


m 


Well wood, Bart.,’* said the paragraph which unwitting- 
ly planted thorns in her bosom, “entered the army in 
the year 1802, and is now in liis thirty-first year» He 
succeeded to the Baronetcy on the Sd of December, 
1808, on the demise of his brother Sir Rupert; and was 
married on the 16th of October, 1809, to Henrietta, 
only daughter of the late Jolin Conybeare Atterfield 
Broughton, Esq,, formerly Member of Parliament for 
the borough of Tewkesbury; from whom he was sepa- 
rated in the course of the following year. Sir Henry 
having no issue by his lady, the hereditary estates in 
Staffordshire will devolve, in case of her survival, to a ' 
distant relative,-— Cockayne Well wood. Esq., of Work- 
ington, in the county of Flint.” — Poor Lady Well- 
wood! — she had very little doubt that this unpleasing 
notice would meet the eye other husband; and serve to 
remind him of her existence by associations of the most 
galling and bitter nature. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


Wbat did he when thou saw’st him!— What said he?— How looked he?— 
Wherein went he?— What makes he here?— Did he ask for me?— Where re- 
mains he?— How parted he wHh thee?, 

As You Like It. 


' For many weeks after this interesting event. Lady 
Wellvvood secluded herself in her own home; and de- 
sisted from her usual equestrian exercise, lest in the 
course of her morning’s ride she should encounter Sir 
Henry making his way (according to the inilication of 
the newspapers) to inquire after the widowetl patient 
of Sir Jacob Collingbury, and find it impossible to re- 
press those emotions which the unexpected sight ot her 
husband must naturally produce. 

The same motive induced her to refrain from all eve- 
tVoL. 1. 10 


THE SEPARATE 


a08 

ning society; and instead of the cause invented by tbe 
dandy, Dornton, to account for her absence, (the super- 
refined fastidiousness of her connexions in the great 
world) it was the delicacy of her feelings alone which 
prompted her scrupulously to elude all occasion of find- 
ing herself in his presence. Instead of yielding to the 
entreaties with which she was continually assailed to 
appear at such a ball, or adorn such a dejeuner, she 
pleaded indisposition and Collingbury, as an excuse for 
staying at home; till, at length, after wearying her 
friends with apologies and her acquaintances with ne- 
gatives, she acquired the odium of being a decided in- 
valid. Others, the less charitable, suggested that per- 
haps, her conscience forbade her to run any risk of a 
casual encounter with her husband; and Lady Well- 
wood, on observing that she was now frequently omit- 
ted from the invitations to the fetes of the season, began 
to fancy that Sir Henry’s return and infiuence operated 
to her disadvantage. He, perhaps, made it a condition 
of his acceptance that Lady Wellwood’s presence should 
be dispensed with. 

The same source of intelligence which acquainted 
her with his arrival, at length, satisfied her of his ab- 
sence from town. The newspapers duly set forth his 
progress from Allstone Hall to Wellwood Abbey; and 
she had the satisfaction of discovering that all her tre- 
mours, and fears, and anxieties, had been lavished in 
vain; that while she had been fancying her husband the 
ornament of every ball-room in town, he was vegetating 
in Yorkshire with Tom and his wife. Her cheeks 
tingled at the mere notion of all that would probably 
be said of her in such a circle. She knew how tho- 
roughly the blulF fox-hunter despised her flashy levity, 
her selfishness, her superficial glitter of fashion: and 
was satisfied that Arabella (even if she displayed the 
magnanimity of pardoning every harsh offence against 
herself) could regard her only as the rock against which 
her brother’s happiness was wrecked for ever. The 
conscious Henrietta had long opened her eyes to the 
superiority of Mrs. Allstone’s character; to her femi- 
nine gentleness, her prudence, her firmness, her tender 
regard for the kind and considerate Henry, who had 
protected her against the contumelious disdains of the 


JilAINTENANCE. 


109 


^’orld. But she did not conceive her sister-in-law to 
be wholly and entirely an angel^ and was apprehensive 
that though so good a Christian, she must look on Lady 
Mandeville’s niece with sentiments far short of her pro- 
fession. Often, during the vicissitudes of Sir Henry’s 
campaigns, had she longed to address her with entrea- 
ties for intelligence of her husband. But her pride re- 
volted against such an act of humiliation: she could not 
endure the thought of the triumphant peals of laughter 
which would burst from Tom Allstone on such a termi- 
nation to her heroics! 

However disagreeable, however dreary might be the 
autumn and winter passed by the baronet in Stafford- 
shire, that which awaited the idol of his soul at Myrtle 
Bank was little less tedious. Poor Sir Jacob Col- 
lingbury was perplexed in the extreme by the head- 
achs and tics he was called upon to cure; and never 
failed to inform Mrs. Delafield, in his daily round of 
visits, that her sister-in-law was. “enjoying” a most 
wretched state of health. On this hint, Mrs. D. wrote 
into Yorkshire, that “ poor dear Collingbury really did 
not exactly know what to make of Lady Wellwood;” 
and Tom having responded to the announcement, that 
the quack would, afc least, make a deuced good job of 
her, took an early opportunity to insinuate to Sir Hen- 
ry, that death and the doctor would probably soon rid 
him of his domestic plagues. 

Henrietta was, in fact, labouring under excessive ir- 
ritability of the nervous system, produced by prolonged 
uneasiness of mind; whereas; “ poor dear Collingbury,” 
having no mind of his own, and being consequently 
slow to suspect its influence over the health of others, 
was the last man to attribute the existence of physical 
ailments to moral causes; He could not conceive how 
heart-burn and indigestion could proceed from the 
softer sensibilities of the heart. At length, alarmed by 
Lady Wellwood’s pallid looks and failing strength, he 
ordered his fair patient to Bath. But after a six weeks’ 
sojourn among gouty admirals and nabobs, the alarming 
boldness of Miss Letitia Broadsden’s attempts to re-en- 
ter her household drove her back to town, and she was 
next packed off to Leamington; where Frederick Dorn- 
ton’s hunting quarters being unluckily established for 


no 


THE SEPARATE 


the winter, she found herself incessantly called upon to 
mediate in those domestic squabbles, which the ill con- 
duct of the husband and the ill temper of the wife ren- 
dered a daily and nightly recreation. 

Harassed and discontented, Henrietta returned once 
more to Myrtle Bank. There, at least, she was able 
to pursue those favourite occupations which tended in a 
great measure to divert the uneasy current of her thoughts. 
She grew ashamed of seeing herself so wan and thin; 
and apprehensive that some person, more perspicacious 
than Sir Jacob Collingbury, might stumble on the true 
origin of her illness, and betray her to the world as 
pining in secret over the destiny her own levity and ob- 
stinacy had provoked. Trembling at the idea of being 
pointed out as still under the influence of attachment 
to her own husband, she determined to resume her 
place in society; to regain her footing in the great 
world; to re-assume the satin robe, the sparkling tiara, 
and appear among the illuminated lialls of fashion, with 
a smile on her lips,^ and Sir Thomas Riddlesworth at 
her feet. 

But fight as resolutely as she may against a betrayal 
of her feelings, no woman is able to disguise the traces 
of real sensibility. In spite of herself, the cheek will 
flush, the lip will quiver; the ear becomes estranged, 
the eye wanders with a restless and mournful expres- 
sion. Yet never had Henrietta appeared in the eyes 
of the world more touchingly beautiful than during that 
critical spring of 1814; when every word spoken by 
English lips was gratulatory or triumphant, and every 
mind warmed into enthusiasm. The delicacy of her 
health imparted unusual elegance to her figure and com- 
plexion; and wherever she appeared, feelings of the 
deepest interest were excited in her favour. Often did 
it chance to Sir Henry Well wood to enter a ball-room 
where her recent presence afforded a theme for univer- 
sal admiration; often, very often, did he hear her named 
by strangers as the loveliest among the lovely :~but by 
some lucky providence the husband and wife never ac- 
tually found themselves in each other’s society. 

Mean while, both were at least secure from all com- 
^ment and inquiry touching their relative position and 
mutual sentiments. Now that Aunt MandevLlle’s. ex-. 


MAINTENANCE. 


Ill 


|(o9ition of the wrongs of her niece were silenced, and 
with it the echoes of the tabby coterie in which she had 
vegetated, no one presumed to investigate the amount 
of disgust lavished by the beautiful Lady Wellwood on 
the man whose existence prevented her from being the 
beautiful Lady Riddlesworth, and dame-consort o? the 
finest domain in the three Ridings. Of the ancient 
spinsters, maimed, halt, or blind, who had witnessed 
the bitterness with which Lady Mandeville descanted 
on the enormities of a man who preferred his natural 
sister to his natural wife, and would not allow her un- 
fortunate niece to visit a dying relative, — few were 
still extant. Among the coteries of May Fair, the bat’s 
wing of oblivion is perpetually sweeping out all traces 
of the past. At the expiration of a year or two, people 
are very apt to mismatch and confound the offenders 
in a domestic quarrel ; and to forget, like Lear, “ which 
is the justice, — which the thief!” 

But even with the surviving dotards of the tribe, 
Henrietta held little communication. She was now 
fortunate in the intimacy of a family who had never 
communicated with Aunt Mandeville’s gossiping crewj 
and who, without having insulted her by inquiries on 
the subject, entertained a very accurate notion of the 
state of her feelings towards Sir Thomas Riddles- 
worth and his Yorkshire estates. 

Mr. Bagot and his two daughters had first introduced' 
themselves to Lady Wellwood, at the moment when 
the sudden death of her aunt, while sojourning at Hast- 
ings for change of air, left her in a painful and harass- 
ing predicament. Harriet and Sophia Bagot had met 
her sufficiently often in the circles of the beau monde tO' 
authorize them in offering their services in such a season 
of distress; services which were not only accepted and 
gratefully acknowledged, but allowed to form the foun- 
dation of a lasting friendship. Henrietta was eventual- 
ly induced to remove to London with her gentle neigh- 
bours of the Marine Parade; and become their perma-^ 
nent neighbour, by the purchase of a villa called Myr- 
tle Bank adjoining their own residence at Putney. 

West Hill, Mr, Bagot’s mansion, though illustrated 
by a less euphonious name, faced with red brick instead 
of white stucco, and overgrown with clipped phyllo' 
10 * 


112 


THE SEPARATE 


rea instead of the rosa multijiora^ was also denomr- 
nated a villa — after its kind; a villa of the olden tiriienf 
the Lady Bettys, and Will’s Coffee House; — and though 
its shrubberies were formal and ill-planteil, they were 
at least serviceable in forming a rich back-ground to 
the American Gardens of Myrtle Bank. The premises 
were, in fact, only divided by a wooden paling; and 
there were very few days of the year in which Hen- 
rietta’s nervous headachs were not assuaged either 
by the playful sallies of Sophy Bagot, or the milder 
counsel of her sister. She was sincerely attached to 
both; and while the peculiar nature of her situation de- 
barred her from unreserved confidence with any hu- 
man being, the fatherly and sterling character of Mr. 
Bagot commanded more of her respect, and the warm 
aftectionate nature of the girls more of her interest^ 
than she was disposed to lavish on any other indivi- 
duals unconnected with th'e.name of Wellwood. 

The proprietor of West Hill was in truth a man 
whom to know was to honour. Distinguished, even 
among the scientific, by the eminence of his learning 
and the value of his discoveries in several of those use- 
ful arts which are cherished in the cradle of science, — 
he was the most benignant, the most gracious, the most 
cordial of earthly creatures. He had never been known 
to testify a harsh feeling even to those fashionable tri- 
flers whom he regarded as the most useless, and con- 
sequently the most contemptible insects of the creation; 
while to his daughters and their friends (and more par- 
ticularly to their friend the beautiful Lady WeHwood) 
he was at once the sage preceptor, and cheerful com- 
panion. He, alone, had noticed in Henrietta the cor- 
roding influence of a secret sorrow; he alone had de- 
tected the disquietude of her bosom, and ventured ta 
suggest that Collingbury and his nostrums were only 
aggravations of the mischief. Mr. Bagot’s know'- 
ledge of her domestic position consisted indeed, solely,, 
in the assertion of a certain Hastings Collingbury, de- 
rived perhaps from his defunct patlent LadyMandeville,. 
that Sir Henry Wellwood was a barbarous monster,, 
from whom her niece had been compelled to demand a 
separate maintenance, in order to escape from a series 
of unheard-of domestic persecutions;, and albeit he con- 


MAINTENANCE. 


113 


reived that it must have been somewhat difficult to 
play the t}’rant towards a being so fair and gentle as 
the Henrietta of Myrtle Bank, he entertained no doubt 
that the Henrietta of Well wood Abbey had been the 
most injured af women*. 

So innocent a sufferer could not be supposed to che- 
rish very forbearing sentiments towards the brute, (half 
squire, half-soldier, — whole Baronet) by whom she had 
been alienated from the sweeter ties of life; and the 
old man was accordingly led to surmise that her un- 
acknowledged sorrows must be connected with an un- 
fortunate attachment in some other quarter, — an at- 
tachment rendered culpable as well as hopeless by the 
indissoluble nature of her matrimonial engagements. 
It was impossible to withhold his sympathy from a 
young and lovely woman thus perplexingly situated'; 
more especially as her conduct was a model of discre- 
tion, — her life a lesson of purity. He saw that Rid- 
dlesworth was by no means the favoured man; but had 
never yet been able to detect, among the gallant 
knights professing open adoration of his interesting 
neighbour, the unfortunately fortunate individual, 
whose attractions had been the means of necessitating 
Henrietta’s trial of the Bath waters, — and the morn- 
ing, noon, and nightly arrival of baskets full of pink 
camphorated draughts from the laboratory of Sir Jacob 
Collingbury, — by the currency of which that gentle- 
man’s senna coloured chariot was kept afloat. 

From the month of June, 1813, when Mr. Bagot, at 
the suggestion of his daughter Harriet, made his way 
through the blossomed shrubberies of Mvrtle Bank, to 
forewarn their nervous proprietress that the hero — “ the 
monster,” — had once more set foot in England, to the 
month of June, 1814, when heroes became as plenty as 
blackberries, the old man fixed a vigilant eye upon her 
decaying health and failing spirits; noting with serious 
anxiety the state of hypochondriacism into which she 
was gradually sinking. It afforded him a solitary grain of 
comfort, amid all the tumult and disorganization con- 
sequent on the heromania at that epoch epidemic in the 
land, that his fair neighbour would probably be drawn 
into the vortex; and lose the sense of her private vex- 
ations, in the contagious enthusiasm of national trr- 


114 


THE SEPARATE 


At length the momentous seventh day of June, eigh^ 
teen hundred and fourteen, and several yachts freighted 
with sovereign princes, arrived together. Again the can- 
nons roared, the bells rang, the flags waved, the people 
shouted. The whole population issued forth by com- 
mon accord into the streets; — the Dover road became a 
living thing; — and an unbroken surface of human heads 
covered the earth from the Elephant and Castle to Pic- 
cadilly. 

But Mr. Bagot had very shortly the disappointment 
of perceiving that Lady Well wood, instead of following 
the general example, and flinging herself into the arms 
of old Blucher, or at the feet of young Alexander, pur- 
sued her accustomed avocations in undisturbed equani- 
mity. While the common herd was bellowing forth its 
rapture at Ascot races, or the uncommon herd lisping 
forth its extasies at the King’s Theatre, to hail the ur- 
banity of an Imperial salutation or the trimliness of an 
Imperial waist, she sat unmoved at her easel completing 
a likeness of his younger daughter. Instead of seizing 
the opportunity of effecting a royal conquest by appear- 
ing at Lady Cholmondeley’s hall, or Lady Salisbury’s 
party, she remained quietly at home, swallowing Col- 
lingbury’s decoctions and eschewing the philtres of va- 
nity. While Harriet Bagot followed the regal cortege 
in an aquatic expedition to Greenwich, that restored to 
Father Thames his days of Elizabethan splendour, — and 
Sophy followed the multitude to St. Paul’s Cathedral, 
to witness, in company with half the Chamberlains and 
a quarter of the crowned heads in Europe, the touching 
spectacle of a congregation of thousands of infants fed 
and clothed by the hands of Mercy, — Henrietta was 
taking her morning walk in her quiet shrubberies; lis- 
tening to the linnets, and admiring the golden festoons 
of its laburnums. 

It was in vain that her lovely friends sought to in- 
spire her with some share of their ardour, by describing 
the inspiriting animation of the throng from which she 
kept aloof. They painted in glowing colours the cour- 
teous graces of the “ rugged Russian bear;” the air of 
stern abstraction supposed to mark the ever-present re- 
grets of the Prussian king for the fair victim sleeping in 
the mausoleum of Charlottenburg. But she W'as niTt to 


MAINTENANCE. 


115 


be tempted forth from her seclusion; and was at last 
obliged to hint to her energetic companions, that she 
could figure to herself the eSect of a ball-room full of 
^old lace and embroidery or a theatre crowded by shout- 
ing enthusiasts, without the fatigue of encountering the 
tumult and pressure of an ungovernable throng. 

Mr. Bagot now began to consider the case desperate. 
Although possessed in his sixty years of philosophy of 
an antidote against the delirium of the hour, he could 
not behold the unanimous insanity of the metropolis 
' without wondering at the imperturbable self-possession 
of the beautiful recluse of Myrtle Bank; and forming 
an opinion that it would have been impossible for her to 
retain this unaccountable indifference to the united at- 
tractions of emperor, king, hetman, field marshal, and 
highnesses ad libitum^ but for the all -engrossing autocra- 
cy of the unacknowledged sovereign reigning within her 
faithful bosom. Still anxious, however, to do his ut- 
most in her behalf, he readily conceded to his daugh- 
ters* wish, that he would join his entreaties to their own, 

• and prevail on Lady AVellwood to become their chape- 
ron at the ball about to be given by the members of his 
club, in honour of the Peace and its gallant originators. 

“Here is little Sophy, my dear madam,” said the 
indulgent fiither, having accompanied his girls to Myr- 
tle Bank on their errand of invitation, “who (not con- 
tent with dragging me to town this morning, that I 
might see her canter round a riding-school on Platoflf’s 
charger, for the amusement of half-a-dozen Don Cos- 
sacks,) must needs insist on my escorting her on Satur- 
day to see the procession to the Guildhall dinner, and 
on Monday to witness the proclamation of peace. You 
must allow that I shall find it difficult to reconcile all 
these toils of pleasure with the duty of playing chaperon 
at the ball on Monday night.” . 

“Papa is in hopes you may be persuaded to supply 
his place, by taking charge of us at White’s fete,” ob- 
served Harriet. “ Indifferent as you are to all the non- 
sense that so engrosses us just now, he trusts you may 
still be induced to take compassion on his asthma, and 
relieve him from the necessity of encountering the at- 
mosphere of a crowded ball-room.” 

“ *^0 with us, dearest Lady Wellwood!” cned 


116 


THE SEPARATE 


Sophia. “I shall be miserable unless you see the Em- 
peror waltz. I assure you it is quite a different thing 
from our stupid tortoise-like Spanish drawl.” 

“I am truly grieved to refuse any request of yours, 
said Henrietta, “but the uncertain state of my health 
forbids me to profit by your kind ” 

“Nonsense, nonsense!” interrupted the giddy Sophy. 
“Take my word for it, you are stronger and better than 
any of usj for / have a gnat-bite on my little finger, and 
Harriet suffered severely from a headach last Tuesday 
fortnight; while you ” 

“Sophy, Sophy!” remonstrated her father. 

“My dear papa, it is all tliat odious Collingbury’s 
doin»i Ever since Lady Well wood gave up riding, to 
shut nerself up in this boudoir with all these magnolias 
and gardenias and Sir Jacob’s prognostications, she has 
been growing so thin^and pale, that she will soon be able 
to perfect her chaperonship by playing the part of our 
grandmother.” 

“With all my heart, dear Sophy,” said Lady Well- 
wood. “I will be as ugly and old as you please, pro- 
vided always you will allow me to be as quiet and in- 
dolent as / please.” 

“No, no, no!” said Mr. Bagot, good-humouredly; 
“I cannot act as witness to a compact so disadvanta- 
geous to society at large. This beautiful lawn, and the 
river, and the flowers, and the birds, are doubtless very 
attractive; but to you I am inclined to address the quaint 
query of the poet: — 

Life’s wholesome business this? Is it to bask i’ the sun^ 

If so, a snail were happy crawling on 
A southern wall. 

“You must accept the ticket, dear Lady Wellwood, 
you must accept the ticket!” whispered Sophia, during 
her father’s quotation. “My cousin Ingerfield will be 
so disappointed if you refuse to take charge of us!” 

“And remember,” observed Harriet, “how rare an 
opportunity this ball will afford for a coup cVceil of the 
most illustrious men in Europe,-— all the potentates, 
statesmen, and heroes of the age.” 

Henrietta paused to meditate; but it was on the at- 


MAINTENANCE. 


117 


tractions of a hero nothing more illustrious than a sim- 
ple Lieutenant-Colonel of Hussars. 

“You will go, then?” inquired Mr. Bagot. “Let 
me entreat you to oblige us all by saying Yes!” 

But Henrietta was spared the exhibition of her own 
infirmity of purpose, and denied the possibility of arti- 
culating “No!” Sophy Bagot threw her arms round 
the neck of her friend, and sealed her lips with a kiss 
of acknowledgment for her unexpressed compliance. 


CHAPTER XVir. 


Let the pavilion over the Euphrates 
Be garlanded, and lit, and furnished forth 
For an especial banquet. At the hour 
Of midnight we will sup there. 

BtRON. 

It must be a difficult task for the debutantes of this 
present season, to figure to themselves, while gazing on 
the begrimed lilac-bushes and sooty elm-trees of Bur- 
lington House, the engrossing interest which, eighteen 
years ago, concentrated the whole interest of the fa- 
shionable world beneath their scanty foliage. At that 
period, when. the now familiar haunt of Carlton Terrace 
was consecrated to gardens sacred and mysterious as 
those of the Alhambra or Fonthill, the Burlington 
greensward was converted by the vulgar machinery of 
iioor-cloth, sail-cloth, and the cloth of gold, into a re- 
gion of temporary enchantment, emulating the luxurious 
glories of Sardanapalus, or 

The golden prime 
Of great Haroon Al Raschid. 

Where now the dingy sparrows build their nests, a tem- 
ple of festivity, illuminated as if by fairy hands, and 
graced with buffets of sugared dainties such as even the 


118 


TtlE SEPARAtfi 


fastidious judgment of dear old Mrs. G -r pronounced 

inimitable, unfolded its attractions^ while Niel Gow 
(the Paginini of the days of “Money Musk,” and 
“Mrs. Macleod,”) sent forth his inspiring strains, 
where the croaking rooks at present disturb the repose 
of the bachelors of Albany. 

Perhaps a more brilliant scene never adorned the an- 
nals of dissipation, than the temporary rooms constructed 
in this saloon -lacking metropolis by the committee of 
Whites. The beautiful and illustrious of our own king- 
dom, excited to the utmost enchantment of their charms 
by the presence of all that was eminent in Europe, — our 
own sovereign retaining that regal dignity of aspect 
which threw the lighter graces of the Russian emperor, 
and the martial sternness of the Prussian king into the 
shade; — Platoff, with his barbaresque simplicity, — Blu- 
cher, with his rough and ready soldiership, — princes 
with the fame of generals, and generals with the air of 
princes; — in addition to a countless multitude of minor 
heroes, whose feats would have split the trumpet of 
fame in the powder-and -pig-tail days of Dettingen, — 
displayed a bright confusion of uniforms, — a sparkling 
galaxy of knightly orders, — a motley variety of rain- 
bow-hued cordons. Stars and garters, crosses and cres- 
cents, badges of every chivalrous institution from the 
“ Tower and Swnrd” of the Arctic circle, to the “ Lion 
and the Sun” of the Torrid zone, brightened the radiant 
ball-room and the galleries clraperied with fluted mus- 
lin. Royalty seemed multiplied on every side, as if by 
a complex lens. Highnesses, serene, royal, and imperial, 
W'ere scattered in unheeded groups; while Castlereagh 
and Metternich stood laughing (in the sleeves of their 
court dresses) at the sight of their majesties, the royal 
puppets, whom it had long been their diplomatic plea- 
sure to finesse upon the chess-board of Europe. But 
above all, the feeling of national triumph, — of the lono-- 
absent restored, — of the long struggling and long-en- 
dangered, elevated for life — for immortality — upon the 
pedestal ofTenown, imparted a glow of gladness to every 
heart. In short, (oh, anti-climax!) Napoleon was at 
Elba, and the Emperor Alexander at Escudier’s hotel! 

Unfortunately, the beauties of that Brumrnellian day, 
are mothers to the beauties of this; though, fortunately. 


MAINTE^ijANCE. 


119 


ifiaTiy survive daughterless, to prose over the high 
breeding displayed by Miss when elevated by 

imperial preference above the impertinencies of eti- 
quette; and the still more courtly, still more perfect ele- 
gance of one, who, leaning on the arm of an emperor, 
seemed born to be an empress; of one 

The glossy brightness of whose clustering hair, 

Which shades, yet shows the forehead yet more fair, 

is still undimmed as when Byron hymned its lustre, 
and the autocrat confessed its charm. Many remem- 
ber the clamours raised against the first dizzy bewil- 
derment of the flying waltz of Tchernichelf,^ — many 
recollect the rivalship excited by the multiplied flirta- 
tions of the royal ogrelings of Prussia. It was, in 
fact, an era of magic wonders; and White’s fete may 
be said, to have constituted the master-spell of its ne- 
cromancy. ^ 

Among the guests thronging to the illuminated ves- 
tibule, there was some perhaps who attracted louder 
notice or more illustrious homage than the fair group 
which, under the convoy of Lord Ingerfield, approached 
Sir George Warrender and Sir Rich.ard Borough, — the 
stewards delegated to examine the tickets of the guests; 
but it was admitted by divers of the mustachioed 
princes ordered to attend on the occasion in all ’their 
orders, (till, as the “mighty Tom” expresses it. 

They looked like a house that is over ensured,) ^ 

that nothing could surpass the flaxen fairness of Sophjy% 
the Grecian contour of Harriet, unless the seraphic air 
of their companion. The future king of Bavaria,' al- 
ready a sentimental poet worthy distinction in any al- 
manack of the empire, protested that but for the dia- 
mond cestus distinguishing Lady Wellwood asthegod- 
dess of beauty, he should have mistaken the group for 
the three graces of England. He passed half the even- 
ing in hammering out a page of hexameters in their ho- 
nour. 

On entering the ball-room, she was fully prepared to 
meet the eye of her husband. She knew he was to be 
present, and had nerved herself for the elfort; she had 

tVoL. I. 11 _ 


no 


THE SEPARATE 


even forewarned herself of the changes which vexation 
and toil and the tug of war, must have wrought in his as- 
pect; for “ the blue eye and sunken,” bespeaking the evil 
influence of withered affections; for the grizzled beard 
betraying the severities of foreign service. What, there- 
fore, was her surprise on glancing along the train of scar- 
letand gold,of glittering aiguillettes and wavingfeathers, 
following in the train of the Prince Regent, to notice a 
fine manly figure, a bronzed and animated countenance^ 
a beaming smile that revealed a row of pearly teeth, — 
all most assuredly belonging to the monster of whose 
soul she had once been the idol ! — Or what her conster- 
nation on. seeing him bend with affectionate courtesy 
towards a lovely girl leaning upon his arm, and look- 
ing up in his face with a smile of uncontrollable admi- 
ration? — The spectacle imprinted itself vividly on her 
imagination; but when she looked that way again, all 
had become indistinct: — either her eyes were dim 
with tears, or the lamps burnt faintly in the ball-room. 

A minute or two aftervvards, Sophy was' claimed as 
a partner by Lord Ingerfield, while Harriet was led t» 
the dance by the Duke of Durham, one of the privi- 
leged donors of the fete. Lady Well wood, ere she 
suffered them to depart, was anxious to attach herself 
to the side of some ’female friend; but just as she was 
moving towards Lady Sandys with the view of taking 
her arm, she found her own appropriated by Sir Thomas 
Riddlesworth; who, as a member of the committee, con- 
sidered himself one of the heroes of the night. His first 
attempt to render himself agreeable, consisted in con- 
ducting her through the doorway in which stood her 
husband, pointing out to his lovely companion the dif- 
ferent members of the Imperial group; and the York- 
shire Baronet being totally unacquainted with the per- 
son of the Baronet of Staffordshire, he naturally at- 
tributed the tremour with which Henrietta was seized' 
to a fit of sensibility excited by his own attentions. 

At supper (that supper so cruelly abbreviated to the 
gastronomes by the single draught of champagne and 
seltzer-water quaffed by the Imperial waltzer) the fair- 
haired beauty was seated next to the herald of the bat- 
tle of Vittoria; and Just as Lady Wellwood, who, in 
spite of Alexander, neither the great nor the little, but 


MAINTENANCE. 


121 

the 'Mediocre, had supped full — (of horrors,) was trem- 
bling her way towards the carriage, guided by Riddles- 
worth and followed by the two Bagots and their part- 
ners, she was so unfortunate as to catch a glimpse of 
Sir Henry in the very act of presenting the new idol 
of his soul to the reigning idol of every body’s soul, — 
that veteran hero, whose complexion resembled that of 
an old honey-combed field-piece, — Blucher Prince of 
Wahlstadt. 

It was fortunate for Henrietta that from Piccadilly 
to Putney she was not required to utter a syllable. 
The wondering superlatives of delight and admiration 
that burst from the lips of Sophia, and even of the more 
sober Harriet, respecting the enchantments and bril- 
liancy of the fete, spared her the humiliating discovery 
that her tears flowed unceasingly though silently through 
five turnpike-gates, between the grande entree which 
at that period clamoured for six-pences at Hyde Park 
Corner, and the swing-gate of Myrtle Bank. 

She rushed into her own room; — she cast a hurried 
glance at the toilet-glass.— Alas! poor Hatty! — what 
had those swollen and penitent eyes to ofter in compe- 
tition with the blue Roman-candle-like radiance illu- 
minating the sweet face of her younger rival; — what 
had those glaring diamonds, that gaudy exuberance of 
finery, to exhibit in comparison with the one white rose 
blooming amid the curls of Sir Henry Wellwood’s new 
idol.^ She threw herself into a chair; and, in spite of 
-her pride and her waiting maid, sobbed aloud for very 
wretchedness. - 


122 


THE SEPARATE 


% 


CHAPTER XV]H. 


* The music and the banquet and the wine, 

The earlands, the rose odours, and the flowers,. 

The sparkling eyes and flashing ornaments. 

The while arms and the raven hair— the braids 
• And bracelets, swan-like bosoms, and the necklace 

An India in itself, yet dazzling not 
The eye like what it circled; the thin robes 
•V.. " Floating like cloud.s betwixt our gaze and heaven; 

All the delusion of the dizzy scene _ . 

r Its false and rare enchantments, — art and nature — 

Are gone! fiyiioN. 

s 

When Mr. Bagot made his appearance at Myrtle 
Bank in the course of the following clay, to inquire af- 
ter the health and strength of his fair neighbour, as 
well as into the accuracy of Harriet’s report, that her 
cousin Ingeriield was certainly on the eve of a propo- 
sal to his pretty little'fair-haired Sophy, he was delight- 
ed to find Lady Well wood far more easily pursuaded 
to undertake the care of his girls at the masked fete, 
about to be given -by Watier's Club, than she had been 
to hazard an appearance at the White’s Ball. It was 
indifferent to the^good old man, whether her change of 
opinion arose from the natural versatility of her sex,, 
or from the attractions of a species of amusement where 


Though curious eyes may quote deformity 
We look to beetle brow's to blush for us. 


She consented to bestow her matronly protection on 
his daughters, — and that was enough. But it was by 
no means indifferent to his benevolent heart to per- 
ceive, as Henrietta bent over a drawing she was finish- 
ing for Harriet’s portfolio, that her face was paler than 
ever, and her hand more tremulous than .seemed pro- 
pitious to the perpendicular of the columns of her Paes- 
tum Temple. He had. seen much in the newspapers 
of the day, and heard more from his daughters,, of tliei 


•a^^AINTENANCE. 


128 


feensatiOM excited by Lady Well wood’s beauty at the 
entertainment of the preceding nightj but he also heard, 
and with regret, that Riddlesworth had escorted her 
during a considerable portion of the evening. It was 
not that he feared for the prudence of his daughters’ 
friendj his apprehensions solely regarded her peace of 
mind. 

But her pale cheeks became flushed with excitement 
during the debates that ensued with Harriet and Sophia, 
touching their costume for Watier’s fete^ which, it was 
understood, would assume the tone of a fancy ball, ra- 
ther than of a regular masquerade. The grave Harriet 
would not hear of any attempt to support a character, 
and Henrietta was av.erse to all attempts at display; it 
was therefore finally arranged that the two girls should 
appear in ball dresses of a somewhat fanciful kind, with 
a half mask; while Lady Well wood took refuge in an 
elegant domino. During the ten days that intervened 
between the two balls, they had little leisure either for 
reminiscences or anticipations. Every day brought 
some new diversion: — a review, purporting to exhibit to 
the mighty Czar a miniature sample of the manoeuvres 
he had lately practised on a scale that Xerxes might 
have envied; — or a formal breakfast, given as if pur- 
posely to curtail the precious moments devoted by the 
exotic Princes to the investigation of our national ma- 
numents. On more than one of these occasions, Lady 
Wellwood was again heart-stricken by a distant glimpse 
of her hero; still bearing on his arm, or escorting on 
horseback, his own particular heroine. Yet painful as 
was the spectacle, she admitted to herself that it was 
better to see him thus— smiling, healthful, happy, — than 
to endure the agonizing suspense by which she had been 
afflicted during his sojourn in Spain. She had long 
been aware that for her he had ceased to exist;— that 
the man whose name she bore, was more completely dis- 
ajnited from herself than any other living being; — and 
strove to persuade herself that to see him restored to 
the enjoyment and adornment of life, wae some mitiga- 
tion of her offences, some consolation to her sorrows. 
It was certainly rather singular that the consolation of 
her sorrow produced so many tears, so many sighs, ^$0 
many nights of feverish restlessness! 

. 1-1 * 


124 


THE SEPARATE 


Perhaps, on the whole, it was fortunate for her fame 
as a beauty, that the committee of Watier’s decided on 
the assumption of “varnished faces” in their revelsj^ 
for all these sighs, tears, and restless nights, whether 
consolatory or not, produced the natural effect of ren- 
dering her eyes hollow, and her nose red. She would 
have been invaluable to Guido Reni as a model for one 
of his Magdalensj but certainly fell far short of her 
usual charms as the belle of a ball-room. Yet so grace- 
ful was her person, her mien so dignified, her domino 
fitted and adjusted with such exquisite taste, and her 
hair, and the contour of her head remaining uncovered, 
so fraught with elegance, that even her youthful compa- 
nions in their lighter robes, attracted far less attention 
among the brilliant throngs collected in the ball-room. 

Occupying the same locale as the entertainment of the 
rival club, there was something original and piquant in 
the fanciful devices of Watier’s fete, which formed an 
improvement on the pompous splendours of its precur- 
sor. The sovereigns were gone, indeed; with the excep- 
tion of the Prince of Wirtemburg, playing the part of 
the Prince of Denmark in velvet and black bugles, not 
a remnant of the illustrious strangers remained. But 
a new lion was there in their place, whose single roar' 
was fairly worth the whole chorus: — Wellington, the 
Great — the u/iiqiie, then in all the untarnished glory of 
his seven-leagued boots. Tt was for him the people 
shouted now; it w'as for him the bells rang, and the 
streaimers fluttered. It was on his brow that patriots 
and sages fixed their curious perusal, to detect the la- 
tent spark of genius, the glow of national pride; it was 
to his eye the blandishments of beauty were directed, 
and the devices of the night dedicated. For his amuse- 
ment Mathews introduced a Yorkshire lout, in curious 
contrast with the diamonds and white satin glistening in 
the ball-room; for him Moore poured forth his stirring 
notes of inspiration; for him an ex-chancellor, the witty 
Erskine, attired as a gipsy vagrant, affected to inter- 
pret the shadows of futurity! — 

^ A wider range was afforded to the eye than on occa- 
sion of the original entertainment; and among its bloom- 
ing conservatories and sparkling temples, the majestic 
Countess of White’s ball now smiled as the fairest of 


MAINTENANCE. 


1^5 


flovver-giris, Lady Heathcote as a peasant of the Alps, 
Lady Ossulston under the shade 'of a monastic habit. 
Gage Rookwood, then young and gay, illustrated the 
humours of a Grub Street poet; and Lady Mary, then 
slight and graceful, spread her silken wings as the deli- 
cate Ariel! — William Peel assumed the obstreperous 
tone Mrs. Sneak; the gentle .Skeffington the slang of 
a mail-coachman; and Douglas Kinnaird the divination 
of a fortune-teller. Here, a grove of illuminated palm 
trees brightened the scene; and there, the mimic shop 
of a lovely modiste put forth its attractions. 

Commenting on the varied contrasts thus afforded, 
Lady Wellwood and Miss Bagot followed the guidance 
of Lord Ingerfield, on whose arm Sophy was leaning; 
when, just as they reached the archway communicating 
with the allee verte, a sudden rush towards the’banquet- 
ing-room separated the little group; so that Henrietta 
and her elder charge were left alone in the crowd. 

• Already agitated by the apprehension (she herself 
could scarcely define whether it arose from hope or fear) 
of meeting her husband, Lady W'ellwood was oppressed 
by sudden faintness from the flurry of the moment, and 
the pressure of the gaudy multitude. 

“Harriet, Harriet!” she faltered to Miss Bagot, “I 
can scarcely support myself. Oh! that we could but 
meet with some friend to extricate us from this dread- 
ful throng.” 

“Take off* your mask,” said Miss Bagot, who had 
already removed her own; “you will breathe more 
freely.” 

“ No!” faltered her friend; “ not for worlds. Why 
— why did I venture here!” 

“ If I might presume to ^ffer my assistance,” inter- 
posed a mask, in the picturesque costume of a pilgrim, 
whose russ€t weeds were entangled with Miss Bagot’s 
draperies, “I think I' could make way for you towards 
yonder window.” 

“Take his arm, dearest Harriet,” whispered Lady 
Wellwood. “Quick,— quick! I can hardly stand.” 

“Your friend is indisposed,” resumed the pilgrim, 
in that intense tone of voice which imparts dignity to 
tlie most trivial observation. “Shall I attempt to pass 
over and assist her with the support of my arm?” 


126 


THE SEPARATE 


“She will sink in this horrible crush, and be tram- 
pled to death I” cried Miss Bagot, trembling with con- 
sternation, when she perceived that her companion was 
no longer able to stand. 

“VVellwood, my dear fellow!” said the courteous 
pilgrim, touching with the end of his stall* an officer in 
regimentals, who stood a few paces in advance of the 
iparty, “help me to make way for a lady who is ex- 
tremely ill. Stay, — give her your arm — quick! — she 
has fainted!” he continued, as Sir Henry VVellwood, 
-turning round, received upon his bosom the falling figure 
of Henrietta. The crowd divided in a moment. It is 
strange that the densest crowd can always contrive to 
make room for a lady in a fainting fit. The doorway 
'Once passed, the path was clear; and hurrying along the 
circuitous passages with his inanimate burden in his 
arms. Well wood and his companions soon reached a 
window open towards the gardens, calling loudly for a 
glass of vvater. — The Dean and his shovel hat would have 
“-been invaluable! — 

Fortunately, Harriet Bagot had overheard the name 
by which her courteous pilgrim invocated the stranger; 
and instead of removing Henrietta’s mask, as under or- 
dinary circumstances she would have done, judged it _ 
-wiser to trust to fresh air and iced water, and to get rid 
of Sir Henry before the perfect restoration of Henriet- 
ta’s consciousness. 

“We shall do very well now,” said she, somewhat 
abruptly, while one or two of the female attendants of 
the refreshment-room hastened to her assistance. 

The hint was instantly understood by the two stran- 
gers. “ If we can be of any farther assistance,” — hesi- 
tated the pilgrim. ' 

“Are you acquainted with Lord Ingerfield,” said 
Harriet, addressing herself pointedly to Sir Henry. 
“You would greatly oblige me by informing my sister^ 
who is with him, that we are anxious to return home as 
soon as possible.” 

“I wish I had the happiness of knowing his- lordship 
by sight. Byron !-:7-a re 2/ow more fortunate?” — said Sir 
Henry, in atone of good-natured concern. 

“ Allow me to go in search of him,” said he, whose 
Hpgh.pale brow and raven hair and characteristic coun- 


MAINTENANCE. 


127 


tenance, were not then as now — a national possession — 
a pledge committed to the guardianship of Fame. “In- 
gerfield is an old Harrow friend of mine; I trust I may 
be able to discover him in the throng, and do your spi- 
riting gently.” And bowing gracefully to Miss Bagot, 
he strode away with a step that laboured to disguise the 
natural imperfection of his gait. 

“Are you better now, dearest?” inquired Harriet of 
her friend, who was reclining in an arm-chair, and suf- 
ficiently recovered to press her hand in token of recog- 
nition. 

“Much better,” she faltered in a faint low voice, 
agonized by the dread that Harriet would address her 
by name, and betray her to her husband. But Miss 
Bagot had too much tact for any such blundering pro- 
ceeding. She saw that Sir Henry Wellwood was safe 
from /the most distant conjecture as to the identity of the 
lady in the gray domino; and that he was riveted to the 
spot by one of those inexplicable personal sympathies 
that speak with a still small voice, more impressive than 
the roar of the tempest. 

“Surely it would be advisable to remove your friend’s 
mask?” he now inquired of Miss Bagot. 

“ Impossible ! It is fastened among the braids of her 
hair, and I should only harass her by the attempt. She 
is better now, — quite sensible!” — said Harriet, dismiss- 
ing the attendants, who were in haste to tender their 
services elsewhere. “We will remi^n here quietly till 
Lord Ingerfield’s arrival, and then return home.” 

She was in hopes the monster would profit by this in- 
telligence, and retreat to the ball-room. But Sir Henry, 
whose fair-haired beauty was on this occasion absent; 
seemed in no hurry to desert his new acquaintance. 
Harriet was stilt engaged in fanning her silent friend; 
when having courteously announced his intention of 
guarding them till Lord Ingerfield’s appearance, or at 
least till Lord Byron’s return, he entered into conver- 
sation with Miss Bagot, with easy and graceful self-pos- 
session, on the subject of the fete, its objects, and at- 
tractions. Several minutes passed away — a quarter of 
an hour — half an hour; — no cousin Ingerfield — no pil- 
grim! — The monster and the monster’s wife — the beau- 
ty and the beast, -^were still sitting beside the open 


128 


THE SEPARATE 


window of the little vestibule looking out on the illumi- 
nated gardens, and conversing with the sudden fami- 
liarity that any extraordinary crisis tends to promote 
among strangers. Harriet was prompt to acknowledge 
the gi atification she had experienced in even an- acci- 
dental interview with the distinguished genius whose 
numbers were already the -boast and admiration of his 
(Countrymen; and whose fame was yet untarnished by 
the 'excesses of his after years. From the poet to his po- 
etry, the transition is easy. Sir Henry quoted with ele- 
gance, and criticised with ability, the verses of his gift- 
ed friend; and even the trembling Henrietta occasionally 
interposed a few admiring comments, — uttered in a voice 
whose hoarse and broken intonations were totally unre- 
cognizable by her companions. Several times, Miss 
Bagot, sympathizing in the critical delicacy of her po- 
sition — entreated their watchful guardian to release him- 
self from his post; but he was so agreeable, and appa- 
rently so eager to execute the duties with which chance 
had invested him, that it was difficult to regret his ob- 
stinate adlierence to their society. At length, — just as 
Sir Henry had begun reciting to the graceful figure in 
the gray domino (whose attention he was labouring to 
divert fi om her own indisposition) some exquisite verses, 
at that time still secure from public curiosity in Byron’s 
note-book, Harriet caught a glimpse from the end of the 
^corridor of the approaching figures of Ingerfield and her 
sister, whom she knew to be unacquainted with the per- 
son of Sir Henry. Flying towards them, she explained 
in a few hurried sentences the state of the case: fore- 
warned them against all mention of the name of Well- 
wood, and so well succeeded in her mancEuvres, that 
although Sir Henry contrived to appropriate to himself 
the office of conducting the interesting invalid to the 
carriage which was now brought to the door by Lord 
Ingerfield’s interposition, he only ascertained from the 
servants. that the equipage was that of a “Mr. Bagot, 
.of West Hill, Putney;” and was left to the inference 
■.that the lady whose fine sentiments and fine person ex- 
cited so much emotion in his bosom, was a Mrs. Bagot; 
— the mother, or grandmother, or sister, or uncle, or 
aunt, (or what on earth could she be) — to the Harriet 
who had so obstinately refused to remove her inaskj Jtnd 


maintenance. 




the sweet Sophy who appeared so deeply concerned in 
her indisposition. Sir Henry returned to the dancing- 
room only to draw forth the irony of Lord Byron, by 
raving of the fascinations of the gray domino; — and 
went tn bed and dreamed that the fainting lady was 
Leilir, sewed up in a sack, and about to be drowned in 
the lake of Yanina; — and himself the Giaour, fighting, 
valiantly in her defence in a white caftan and a pair of 
yellow morocco boots. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


La plupart des homm6s emploient la premiere partie de leur vie d rendw 
Pautre miserable. 


La. Bruyere, 


West Hill, Putney, was a large square brick house, 
standing on a naked lawn of the greenest and smoothest 
tnrf, sloping towards the Thames. Its tall iron gates 
and formal drive-in, were easily pointed out to Lieut. 
Coltmel Sir Henry Wellwood, when, in his anxiety to 
inquire after the health of the three ladies, he ascended 
its lofty flight of steps on the day following the adven- 
ture at Watier’s fete; and stood admiring the trim 
shapeliness of the two magnolia trees planted on either 
side the door. There was something rather repulsive 
in the old-fashioned stateliness of the spot. The butler, 
who presented himself at the glass-door, was a venera- 
ble gray-headed man, by no means likely to answer im- 
pertinent questions; the hall within was of dark-coloured 
oak, with a ceiling of Verrio’s school, covered with 
sprawling gods and goddesses. He saw that it was no 
citizen’s villa; that West Hill was a mansion in which 
Pope’s Belinda might have paid morning visits, and the 
“ charming Mary Montagu ” flirted her fan. It was a 
redoubtable spot for an adventure of modern knight-er- 
rantry. 


uo 


THE SEPARATE 


Sir Henry, mean while, contrived to make his inqui** 
ries after the ladies tolerably intelligible; and having 
learned from the old domestic that they had “just 
drove into town with his master,” bravely demanded 
pen and ink, that he might leave his name. There can- 
not, by the way, be a better pretext (whether for lovers 
or swindlers) to obtain admission into a house and re- 
connoitre the premises, than to travel without a card-case. 
The old man looked hard at the fine blood-horse and 
respectable-looking groom in waiting on the anonymous 
{stranger, and admitted him without hesitation. Having 
conducted Sfr Henry across the damp, solemn, oaken 
hall, he now opened the door of the young ladies’ morn- 
ing room of which the folding windows stood open to- 
wards the pleasure-grounds, and brought forward a 
blotting book and inkstand. 

But lo! while Sir Henry was inscribing his name 
with all that loitering interest in the spot which inte- 
rest in the owner naturally imparts, the butler sudden- 
ly exclaimed, — “ Ah! there is my lady crossing the 
shrubbery; I thought master had persuaded her to go 
with them, as she was so much better this morning;” 
and Wellwood instantly looking out, perceived the 
stately beauty of the gray, domino sauntering languidly 
towards the-side. river Without stopping for a single 
inquiry, he snatched his hat, and with eager agitation 
made his way through the open window in the same di- 
rection. Her back was towards him; — but could he 
mistake that graceful waist,~that flowing outline? 

On approaching 4he fair stranger# however, the awk- 
wardness of his position induced him to slacken his 
pace. Might not his intrusion be accounted audacious? 
— It mattered not. He must sec her , — must speak to 
her again; and not having been able to overtake “my 
lady” till she reached a low wicket-gate in the rustic 
palings- of the shrubbery, did not hesitate to follow her 
into the flower-garden enclosed within. 

It was with a start of nervous trepidation that Lady 
Wellwood turned towards him, on hearing herself 
stammeringly addressed by the gentleman who with his 
hat in one hand and a riding-whip in the other, had al- 
ready reached her side; but it was with a start W fiir 
greater amazement, consternation, horror, and confu- 


MAINTENANCE. 


131 


Sion, that Sir Henry recognised in the heroine of the 
rnasquerade, and of West Hill, Putney, his own Hen- 
rietta, — the umcjwiiile idol of his soul! — 

It was impossible to recede! — Some explanation was 
absolutely necessary; and having faltered out that “he 
feared there was some mistake, — that he had taken the 
liberty of intruding at Mr. Bagot’s residence to inquire 
after a l^dy of the family who had. been extremely in- 
disposed at Watier’s the preceding night,” Lady Well- 
wood managed to stammer in reply, that she herself had 
been indebted to his services, for which she begged to 
otter him her thanks. “My friends, the Miss Bagots,” 
continued Henrietta, gaining courage, “are gone with 
a gay party to Woolwich, to visit the Nelson previously 
to its launch; and I am just returned from witnessing 
their departure.” 

Notwithstanding the extreme embarrassment of both 
parties, there was nothing discourteous or discouraging 
in Henrietta’s mode of address. Sir Henry felt it un- 
necessary to retreat with any remarkable precipitancy. 

trust you reached home, ’’-said he, “without a 
recurrence of your illness.^ Those rooms were sutto- 
cating! Temporary rooms, which are so susceptible of 
ventilation, are usually more close and ill-managed than 
any others.’’ 

> This was a fortunate topic. They managed to talk 
of temporary rooms, tents, marquees, ventilation, and 
Mr. Budding’s management, till both had pretty nearly 
overcome the palpitation, and ttush, and confusion of 
mind and body, consequent on tlieir mutual recognition. 
Lady Wellwood suffered most. Her sight grew indis- 
tinct; all the bright parterres of flowers bordering t!ie 
shrubbery presented a confused glare. But she felt 
that her situation was critical; — that she should “mar 
all by starting;” — and exerted a woman’s fortitude (a 
faculty beyond 'the dreaming of the schools) to retain 
•the aspect of selfqwssession. By some happy Inspira- 
tion she now hazarded an inquiry, of all others calcu- 
lated to satisfy the perplexed Welhvood of the kindly 
nature of her feelings towards him. 

“ I hope Mrs. Allstone is well? — She has now', I 
think, two children?” — 

‘‘ I thank you; my sister is quite w'ell: she has a fine* 
tVoL. 1. 12 


132 ^ 


THE SEPARATE 


boy, and a pretty little girl. Allstone is obliged to be 
a good deal in town for the house; but Arabella has only 
passed one season here since her marriage.” 

There was nothing very interesting either in the ques- 
tion or reply; yet the friendly spirit of the former, and 
the warm, affectionate, grateful tone in which the latter 
was uttered, spoke volumes. It was fortunate that 
they did so; for the parties were now within sight of the 
house, — the beautiful rustic villa covered with roses and 
clematis, which Lady Well wood had done so much to 
embellish; and both her ladyship and Sir Henry felt 
that the moment of parting was at hand. Neither of 
them seemed inclined to accelerate their pace. 

“lam glad to learn from my medical attendant,”^ 
said Henrietta, hoping to avoid the awkwardness of a 
dead silence, “that Mrs. Delafield’s health is so much 
restored.” 

“ Yes! — she is now quite a robust woman,” replied 
Sir Henry, glad of an occasion to speak cheerfully. 
“All her nervous whims and fancies have disappeared; 
and she is even able U> accompany her daughter into so- 
ciety.” 

“ Her daughterr”- 

“Itis true Blanche is not quite seventeen, but the 
peculiar attractions of the present season have induced 
my sister to bring her out somewhat prematurely. She 
was thought one of the prettiest girls at White’s.” 

Lady Well wood’s heart began -to beat again. Dolt 
that she had been, not to recognise little Blanche of Tun- 
bridge in the lady of the flowing,ringletsl 

“Mr. Dornton informs me,’? said Sir Henry, “that 
you never appear in crowded rooms, 'or I should proba- 
bly have recognised you last night.” 

“I have not seen Mr. Dornton these two years,” 
said Henrietta, coldly. 

A pause ensued; both parties were growing nervous 
again. They were within twenty paces of the house; 
the perfume of the climbing flowers covering the rustic 
portico was already perceptible.— Nothing remained for 
them but to say “ Good by!” 

At that moment, a rough-looking terrier that was 
sleeping in the sunshine hear the verandah, raised its 
head on the approach of footsteps; and suddenly changed 


MAINTENANCE. 


133 


tlie stretching motion of lazy recognition with which it 
W'as beginning to notice its mistress, into one of those 
yelping, bounding, crouching, whining fits of ecstasy, 
x^'ith which a dog alone, of all animate things, contrives 
to make manifest the warmth of its welcome. 

“ Down, Tartar! down,” cried Sir Henry, repressing 
the caresses of the enraptured brute, which was leaping 
almost into his face in the ardour of its demonstrations 
of joy. 

“Down, sir!” echoed Henrietta, trembling at the in- 
ferences her husband might draw, on finding his old 
stable favourite established in her. boudoir, — a far more 
precious pet than the Jessy of former times. 

But Tartar obeyed his master’s well-known voice 
only by crouching on the grass — his eyes fixed on those 
of Sir Henry, his tail wagging like the flyers of an en- 
gine. It was impossible to avoid stooping down to pat 
the head of the faithful beast. Neither Sir Henry nor 
Lady Well wood recollected Argus and Ulysses, — they 
had no leisure to be classical: but when the Lieutenant 
Colonel raised his glistening eyes from Tartarus wiry 
white coat, he was agitated enough to venture on any 
thing. 

“ I fear,” said he, in a somewhat broken voice, “ that 
I must seem an intruder here. Believe me, 1 had no 
intention of trespassing on your retirement^ arid in taking 
my leave, permit me only to assure you of the sincere 
gratification it gives me to find you looking so well, and 
settled in a retreat affording you such neighbours as the 
young ladies who accompanied you last night.” 

Henrietta extended her hand to one of the rustic co- 
lumns of the portico^ but though she trembled, she had 
taken a stern resolution. “ Since you are here,” said 
she, “ pray come and see my house. It is small; — not 
so much of a place as West Hill: but I prefer it for the 
summer season.” 

In a moment they had entered the folding windows 
of a beautiful little drawing-room, hung with draperies 
of the palest green silk, and fitted up with glossy white 
maple wood. There was no gilding, no Bulil, no costly 
Dresden, no or-moulu; — nothing on the tables but 
flowers and books, and a few antique vases paterae of 
yellow marble and bronze: — nothing on the walls but a 


134 


THE SEPARATE 


little folding cabinet of ininiatureSi containing the 
ture of her parents, which he remembered in her dress- 
ing-room at the Abbey. An opening seemed, however, 
to have been made in the velvet, for the admission of 'a 
third portrait. But it was not Lady Mandeyille^ — no! 
it was a man, — a soldiery — and, unless the distance de- 
ceived him, attired in a uniform greatly resembling that 
of a field-officer of his Majesty’s — th Hussars! — 

Lady Well wood now invited him to a seat, and down 
he sat: — still stunned and bewildered by his strange ad- 
venture, but sufficiently himself to notice the extreme 
beauty of a half-finished dravving that lay on a table- 
easel before him. 

“Do not look at that,” said Henrietta, blushing 
deeplj; “it is a very poor affair, — intended only for 
my friend Harriet Bagot’s portfolio.” 

“Ifis exquisite!” cried Sir Henry with enthusiasm. 
“You must have occupied youi'self a great deal with ^ 
drawing, to have attained this perfection. -Blanche De- 
lafield is considered to possess an extraordinary talent 
of this description. Her sketches are very finej — I 
should like much to show you one, — to have your opi- 
nion, — to — ” 

Henrietta was too proud to save his prides and fulfil 
his wishes by saying — “Pray bring me one to look at:”^ 
and perhaps it was this hesitation, — or perhaps the sud- 
den entrance of a servant announcing “Sir Jacob Col- 
lingbury,” which induced him to profit by the confusion 
of the little man’s fussy entree, make a low bow, and 
take his departure. The Doctor was no less amazed 
when he attempted to count the miraculous acceleration 
of her ladyship’s pulse, tlvan w’as her ladyship’s footman 
on finding a tall handsome stranger established in her 
ladyship’s drawing-room, who certainly had not entered 
by the door: and while Lady Well wood was receiving 
grave assurances of the necessity of oceans of anodyne 
draughts for the tranquilizatron of her nervous system. 
Sir Henry hurriedly retraced his footsteps through the 
beautiful shrubberies, repassed the wickei-gate, the 
parlour window of West Hill, destroyed the “Sir 
Henr — ” which still remained a mysterious fragment on 
Harriet Bagot’s writing-tablej and without summoning 
a servant or entering inta farther explanations, re* 


WAtNTENANCE. 


135 


crossed the hall, descended the door steps, took his im- 
patient horse from his patient groom, and was on the 
London road in a minute! 

Mean while, the gray-headed butler of West Hill, 
who, on perceiving that his master’s visiter was gone on 
a visit to Lady Well wood, judged it unnecessary to 
mount guard till his return, and being too much of a 
dignitary to question the groom, (as either of the foot- 
men would have done, had they been on the spot,) was 
now quietly employed spelling over to the lady’s maid 
in the housekeeper’s room, the account given in the 
morning papers of the masquerade of the preceding 
night. 

** Ah! here’s the young ladies’ names at full length,” 
said he, placing his spectacles more firmly on his nose. 
“The beautiful Misses Bagot,” that’s them! — and as 
sure as a gun, the young gentleman yonder has fail’d in 
love with them, and is now gone to ask my lady’s as- 
sistance in his hovertures.” 

“ Young gentleman yonder, Mr. Woolham.^ Where?’^ 

“I’ll go and inquire his name of the groom and 
horses!” said old Woolham, toddling through the offices 
towards the hall -door. But groom, horses, stranger, — • 
all had disappeared^ nay! even the few letters traced 
in the butler’s presence on the quire of Bath hot-pressed, 
lying with its “virgin page, bright and unwritten still,” 
on the library table. 

It afforded some comfort to poor Woolham that Miss 
Harriet’s gold repeater lay there also! But he soon de- 
cided that since the mysterious stranger was not a 
house-breaker, he could scarcely be less than the cloven- 
footed tempter of Dr. Faustus! The housekeeper’s 
room congress, mean while, was of a contrary opinion. 
Miss Bagt)t’s maid thought the great unknown must be 
some great man “what had fallen in love with her 
young lady at the ball, like the Prince in Cinderella:” 
and Miss Sophy entertained strong suspicions that he 
would turn out to be “no waiter, but a Knight Tem- 
plar.” 

But the question did not appear likely to be speedily 
set at rest. Even when the Bagots on their return 
(prompted by the contradictory reports by which they 
1 . 2 * 


136 


THE SEPARATE 


were greeted, and moved perhaps by a hope that Child© 
Harold himself had pursued his pilgrimage to Putney,), 
flew to Henrietta for an explanation, they found her 
confined to her own room by a nervous headach. To 
all their inquiries, she replied briefly and coldly, that 
the stranger was a near relative of her own, whom she 
had not seen for some time; and who had addressed 
himself by mistake to the residence of Mr. Bagot. 

“You may, rely on it, Harriet!” whispered Sophia to 
her sister, as they stole back through the shrubberies 
and tli^j twilight, — “ that it was Sir Henry Wellwood 
himself! How I wish we had been at home! Poor 
thing! We might have spared her all the pain and ena^ 
harrassment of such a meetingl” 


CHAPTER XX. 


Voila notre veuve ecoutant la louange, 

Poison qui de I'amour est le premier d^gre ; 

La voili qui trouve k son gre 
Celui qui le lui donne. 

La Fontaine. 

It was not till Sir Henry Wellwood regained his 
own door and dismounted from his' horse, that he had 
the gratification of perceiving poor Tartar, with his- 
eyes blinded by dust and his tongue a quarter of a yard 
in^ extension, following close at his heels. It was the 
first pedestrian feat the poor beast had accomplished for 
many years past. 

During the three courses of a formal dinner party, to 
which his quondam master had been previously engat^-ed 
in Arlington Street, Sir Henry could think of nothmg 
but the joyful opportunity thus aftbrded him of return- 
ing to Myrtle Bank, for the restoration of the dog. He 
had not yet recovered the delirium of the morning’s ad- 
venture. Was it Henrietta he had seen — or an angel P- 


maintenance:* 


isr 

the harsh arrogant niece of Ladj Mandeville, or his 
own Arabella translormed by some magic incantation 
into the goddess of -beauty? — Where had the haughty 
Lady Wel l wood acquired those feminine graces, — those 
brilliant accomplishments, — those simple tastes — that 
mild forbearing tone — such loveliness, such softness, 
such high-breeding? Alas! — alas!— why were all these 
charms, all these fascinations, fated to unite in the only 
woman severed by an eternal barrier from his approach! 

“ What an amazing fine animal you were riding this- 
morning!” lisped a captain in the guards who sat op- 
posite him at the dinner table. 

“ Yes! it is one of the famous Isle of Sky terriers,” 
replied Sir Henry, thinking only of Tartar. 

“ Do you go to the review at Woolwich?” inquired 
Lady Lucy Lemaitre, by whom he was sitting. 

“ Perhaps she may deny herself!- or, I — I — beg your 
ladyship’s pardon, — I do not exactly understand ” 

“ Oh! I only inquired whether you go to the launch' 
of the Nelson? The Duke of Wellington will be 
there.” 

“They seem on the most familiar footing,” muttered 
Sir Henry, “the garden-gate renders it a common re- 
sidence.” 

Lady Lucy^ satisfied that this incoherent speech re- 
ferred in some way or other to the lions of the hour, 
assured him that there was no communication between 
the gardens of Stable Yard, and those of Carlton' 
House. 

Sir Henry was now mystified in his turn^ particular- 
ly when Byron, who sat on Lady Lucy’s left hand, 
began to perplex him with inquiries concerning his 
mysterious beauty of Watier’s. “ Since you are in- 
debted to me for your introduction to her notice,” said 
the Childe, “you should at least oblige me by telling 
me the name of my friend? I called on Ingerfield this 
morning to cross examine liim; but he was off to Wool- 
wich.” 

“ If you mean that beautiful girl who always dances 
with Lord Ingerfield,” said Lady Lucy Lemaitre, “it 
is* his cousin and mine, Sophy Bagot. Her father, who' 
lives at a villa near town, is a very eminent man^ and 
the two girls are charming.” 


1^8 


THE SEPARATil 


“ If our fair miracle should prove the mother,” said 
Lord Byron, looking towards Wellwood, “ I beg you 
will take Proserpine, and leave Geres to Tne.” 

“ Mrs. Bagot has been dead these fifteen years,” ob- 
served Lady Lucy. 

“But a very beautiful woman accompanied them 
last night?” — 

Last night?” 

“At Watier’s. She was dressed in a gray domino, 
and went away early.” 

“Hush!” whispered Lady Lucy in a low voice. 
“ That was Lady Wellwood. Don’t say another 
word: they are not on speaking termsj a separation 
took place very soon after their marriage.” 

In spite of all his efforts not to listen, Sir Henry did 
hear every syllable uttered by his fair neighbour and 
gossip; and each was a dagger to his heart. Yes! he 
clearly saw the indecorum, the utter impossibility of 
his seeking the society of Lady Wellwood. What 
would the world say, — the world which had already 
said so much about them! He could not bear the look 
of curiosity and interest with which Lord Byron now 
regarded them. On pretext of visiting the Opera, he 
quitted the dinner-table as soon as the ice was removed; 
and quickened his steps under the certainty that they 
would all begin talking of him the moment he was 
out of the room. Yet he had not courage to stay. He 
made his way home on foot in no very enviable frame 
of mind; and striving to fancy himself fatigued by the 
fete of the preceding night, resolved to refresh himself 
with a long night’s sleep. 

But in the solitude of his own chamber he was greeL 
ed by two images,~a real one and one ideal, — which 
murdered sleep; — Tartar and the lady of the gray do- 
mino; — the dog which had been so constant to him , — - 
the wife to whom he was still so constant!— Can it be 
supposed that, with such companions, he retained any 
chance of steeping his senses in forgetfulness? No-^ 
no! — “Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,” 
would have nothing to say to him. He was sure at 
least of getting rid of one of his troublesome inmates 
before the return of night; — ere he completed his morn- 
ing toilet, he determined to carry the modern Argus 


MAINTENANCE. 


139 


back to Putney before two of the clock. The day was 
hne; and should he defer the journey, the fair proprie- 
tress of Myrtle Bank might perhaps be tempted out 
Emperor-liunting with the Bagots. 

It was some comfort to him to perceive, on entering 
the swing-gates, that a carriage (not Collingbury’s) was 
drawn up before the door. She was certainly at home^ 
— but how could he manage to accost her in presence 
of perhaps some mutual friend.^ Having taken the pre- 
caution of coming witliout a groom, he Had no hesita- 
tion in beckoning out Lady Wellwood’s footman, who 
was gossiping with the servants, and insinuating a 
guinea into his hand with the rein of his horse. In re- 
turn for this double deposite, John had no hesitation in 
informing him that the carriage belonged to a Miss Ap- 
plebury; whose name being quite unfamiliar to him, 
Sir Henry was in the hall in a minute. 

No upper servant appeared^ for he had purposely omit- 
ted to “strike upon the bell.” Boldly, therefore, open- 
ing the door of the drawing room to which he had been 
admitted the preceding day, qnd assuming a sort of apo- 
logetic face on perceiving Henrietta seated near a very 
tall spare, austere-looking female, — he advanced to- 
wards- the sofa, hoping she had not been alarmed- by 
Tartar’s disappearance, and protesting he had only just 
discoyered himself to have been the means of decoying 
away her favourite. 

Lady Wellwood, whose countenance bore evident 
symptoms of indisposition, whose pale cheeks were 
shaded by a close cap, and her general air such as 
would have conveyed to the discerning Sir Jacob the 
cheering promise of a six weeks’ illness, coloured to 
her very finger-tips with agitation and surprise, on find- 
ino- herself thus accosted. It had not occurred to her 
as^in the possible nature of things that Sir Henry would 
return — freely and voluntarily return — to Myrtle Bankj 
and his sudden and unannounced apparition almost 
overcame her. She had no leisure to perceive that 
Miss Applebury was examining her confusion and the 
handsome stranger, with her thin lips compressed with 

scorn, her gray eyes dilated with wonder, — and her 

frizzed toupee standing on end with the discovery that 
the immaculate Lady Wellwood, (the miracle of di&« 


140 


tHE SEPAllATE 


cretion to whom her cousin Bagot chose to submit the’ 
care of his daughters, instead of electing herself to be 
their mother-in-law) did actually receive private visits 
from strange gentlemen, and on so familiar a footing 
that the servants suffered them to pass unannounced, 
while the “ little dogs and all ” regarded them as lords 
and masters! Miss Applebury had “ always suspected, 
always known, that things were not quite right at Myr- 
tle Bank. She had never said so; — oh! noj — thank 
Heaven she was no fetcher and carrier of scandal, — 
nopryer into the affairs of others^ but now that the bu- 
siness was so very flagrant, she considered herself at 
liberty to speak her mind; and she must say that in her 
ladyship’s delicate situation \vas a very indelicate thing 
(to say the least of it) that she should be courting the 
acquaintance of a set of giddy young libertines, merely 
because they happened to be good-looking. She hoped 
Mr. Bagot might not have to repent his misplaced con- 
fidence. Example was a frightful thing; and she should 
certainly take care to let her friend Mrs. Delafield know 
the manner in which her sister-in-law Was proceeding.” 

It was fortunate for Sir Henry that Miss Applebury’s 
anxiety to express the sentiments thus passing in her 
mind atMortlakeand West Hill, induced her to forego 
the dear delight of watching the guilty pair, and as- 
certaining how long the anonymous gentleman would 
think proper to extend his lounge in Lady Wellwood’s 
green bower-chamber. But it was still more fortunate 
that she ’Chanced to make Miss Bagot the auditress of 
her malicious comments. On her arrival, Harriet was 
actually on the point of setting forth, work-bag in hand, 
to pass the morning with her invalid friend; and rea- 
dily conjecturing, with the sentimental tact of nineteen, 
that the mysterious stranger of to-day could be none 
other than^the mysterious stranger of yesterday, and 
the mysterious stranger of yesterday than the monster 
of the four preceding years, she determined within her- 
self that as the feuds or reconciliations of married peo- 
ple require no aid of witnesses, Tartar, his lady and Sir 
Henry, might be left to the adjustment of their own af- 
faip. She instantly took off her bonnet, drew open the 
strings of her work-bag, and sat down contentedly to 
hei satin stitch; while Miss Applebury dragged her 


MAINTENANCE. 


141 


luckless horses and domestics eight miles farther out 
of their way to visit Mortlake, and premonish Mrs. 
Delafield of the blot affixed upon her family scutcheon. 
Blanche, who dearly loved her uncle, heard the tale of 
scandal with a blush and a sigh; while her mother pro- 
mised that “ poor dear Harry ” should receive, with- 
out loss of time, a hint of the sly iniquities of his wife. 

On putting this project into execution by relating to 
Sir Henry, and frankly naming her authority, the ad- 
vent of the mysterious seducer of Tartar and Tartar’s 
mistress, it struck her that he received the intelligence 
of his quondam idol’s indiscretion with a very singular 
expression of countenance; and she was still more 
shocked when, instead of prosecuting any investigation 
on the subject, he addressed himself to Blanche for the 
loan of a few of her sketches, and busied himself in 
turning over his niece’s portfolio, as eagerly and critical- 
ly as it she had been about to stand an election for the 
honours of the Royal Academy. Little did she imagine, 
as she bumped half way back with her brother along the 
London Road, that his niece’s drawings were about to 
be converted into tickets of admission for a third visit 
at-Myrtle Bank! She wrote a long account of the bu- 
siness to Mrs. Allstone by that very day’s post; but it 
was the Applebury version of the business, — a variorum 
edition, about as true to the text as old Woolham’s dis- 
sertation to the ladies* maids. He^ indeed, still con- 
tended that Satan, in person, had visited the fair lady 
of the villa. But Mrs. Delafield was of opinion that it 
was only one of his imps; a military demon standing six 
feet two in his Hobys,— concealing his horns under a 
Bond Street hat, and his tail under an olive-coloured 
surtout. 


142 


THE SEPARATE 


CHAPTER XXI. 


I’ll think no more of her ! Who is not mine 
'Ey a bond dearer than the vulgar noose 
Which law and church have knotted, must seek out 
Some othef heart to nestle in. 

Beaumont and Fletcher. 

m 

It argues considerable magnanimity on the part of 
the amiable daughters of Mr. Bagot/that (even after 
the mystery of the great unknown had been ferreted 
out and brought to light, in the course of a tea-party 
between the housekeeper’s room at West Hill, and the 
housekeeper’s room at Myrtle Grove, and communi- 
cated to themselves in course of hair-curling by their 
maid, on the self-same night,) they carefully abstained 
from annoying Lady Wellwood by their interference. 
They were good-natured enough to put implicit faith in 
her complaint of bilious headachs, without boring her 
with notes or visits of inquiry; and left her in the hands 
of the quack Collingbury, and the monster of Wellwood 
Abbey, in the certainty that she was at years of discre- 
tion to eschew the -evil designs of either or both. 

Nay, although the summer weather tempted them 
forth into their shrubberies evening after evening, and 
although they were aware that Sir Henry, Henrietta, 
and the Isle of Sky terrier, were divided from them 
only by a rustic paling, they neither played the spy 
upon this oddest of odd courtships, nor insinuated a hint 
on the subject to Lord Ingerfield; who, on such a temp- 
tation, would scarcely have been able to withdraw his 
eye from the Pyramus and Thisbe apertures of the 
wooden wall. When w’e consider their loss in the ex- 
citement produced by the shower of heroes which was 
now dried up and disappearing, — that not an emperor, 
hero, nor Don Cossack, was now to be found from 


MAINTENANCE. 


143 


Dover to Berwick-upon-Tweed— ^we must admit their 
forbearance to have been highly commendable. 

Mean while, the situation of Lady Wellwood, if 
somewhat less painful to her feelings than the suspense 
she had been compelled to undergo during the four 
foregoing years, was far from satisfactory. Persons 
who perform their pilgrimage from the cradle to the 
grave along the straight-forward rail-road of common- 
place duties, whose difficulties consist in stretching the 
amount of pounds, shillings, and pence, allotted to their 
necessities between January and January so as exactly 
to cover the’ thirty-first of December, have very little 
notion of the strength and impenetrability of the cob- 
webs which the super-refinement of the great world 
spins around the destinies of its children. 

The atmosphere of such a region possesses a magni- 
fying power, which elevates trifles into fatal importance, 
and destroys all optical accuracy. Henrietta, for in- 
stance, who, from the moment she began to exercise 
her understanding, had existed in what is termed so- 
ciety, and whose principles on all minor points were 
grounded on its moral code, was induced to regard such 
a tribunal as secondary only to the mightiest. Though 
imbued with a thorough contempt for such persons as 
the Frederick Dorntons, Letitia Broadsdens, and Mrs. 
Delafields, of the circle in which she moved, she re- 
garded the verdict to be pronounced by hundreds of 
Dorntons, Broadsdens, and Delafields, as an unimpug- 
nable decree. Without energy or discrimination to say 
to herself, “.Am I right — am I wrong? — what will the v 
wise and virtuous say of me? — how do I appear in the 
sight of One to whom even the wise and virtuous are 
accountable?” — she could not silence in her mind the 
eternal whisper of “ What will the world say to my in- 
consistency in receiving the friendly visits of a man 
whose conduct was such as to drive me from his houser 
How will people sneer at my folly when they find me 
courting the society of one from whom I actually and 
publicly demanded a separate maintenance!— There is 
something too humiliating in the idea of all the imperti- 
nent jests of which I shall become the object. Mrs. 
Allstone, when she learns that Wellwood has thus ac- 
cidentally renewed his intimacy with me, will doubtless 

tVoL. 1. 13 


144 


THE SEPARATE 


warn him of the contempt he is likely to incur by such 
an exhibition of weakness; and I shall find him sudden- 
ly withdraw his visits and become as much estranged 
from me as ever. This will not do; I must be before- 
hand with such a step. I have been very imprudent in 
admitting, perhaps in encouraging his advances; but I 
will, at least, be the first to terminate the folly of such 
proceedings.” 

The next time Sir Henry Well wood made his way to 
Myrtle Bank, Ire was refused admittance; nor could 
even a second guinea to the footman procure a remission 
of the sentence. Henrietta had taken care to be really 
absent from home; and for several following days, was- 
at the pains to vary her modes of exercise, — so that 
with the aid of her horse, her boat, and her carriage, it 
was no very difficult matter to elude her visiter. But 
whether see-sawing on the Thames,. or cantering along 
the turf of Richmond Park, one sole idea occupied the 
mind of the restless lady. “ We are parted for ever— 
parted according to the legal provisions of a separate 
maintenance; AVellvvood can be nothing now to me — I, 
nothing to him. We should but expose ourselves to 
the ridicule of society, by affecting to live on friendly 
terms after a quarrel so notorious.” 

Sometimes, indeed, particularly after her peremptory 
mode of declining his visits, she was tempted to doubt 
w'hether Sir Henry had entertained any other vievv than 
the mere gratification of his curiosity respecting her ha- 
bits of life. Her jealousy was fairly set at rest by the 
discovery of little Blanche Delafield ‘in tlie person of his 
fair-haired beauty; but might he not have formed some 
attachment in Spain, rendering it important to him to 
investigate the tenour of her own conduct; — might he 
not be intent on proposing some arrangement for the 
concealment of their union; — might he not have sought 
her solely to entreat her iai^operation in annulling their 
ill-starred marriage?— “ Poor dear Collingbury ” found 
It extremely difficult to drown in camphor julep the lit- 
tle restless demon of discord conjured into activity with- 
in her bosom by this unlucky conjecture! 

After all, notwithstanding the idle hopes that had be- 
gun to re-animate her heart concerning Well wood’s de- 
sire to seek in her friendship a solace for that tenderness 


MAINTENANCE. 


14d 


bf wedded union, which incompatibility of temper — like 
the sword flaming in tlie hands of the guardian cheru- 
bim at the gate of Paradise — closed against their ap- 
proach; what had Sir Henry said or done to warrant 
her notion that he had forgiven the past, or was anxious 
to conciliate the future? — 

Accident — though he perchance might be ill-naturedly 
tempted to attribute the whole affair to design — accident 
had caused her to faint in his arms, and had brought him 
ignorantly and unwittingly to West Hill in pursuance 
of the common courtesies of life. The necessity of re- 
storing her dog had induced his second visit;— and as 
to the third, common honesty required her to remem- 
ber that she had expressed as much desire to see his 
niece’s drawings as Sir Henry had shown to obtain her 
opinion on their merits. On that occasion, they had 
walked round the grounds together; and while examining 
the orangerie, it was indispensable to quote the land 

Where the citron and orange are finest of fruit, 

to recur to »Seville, with its boleros and fandangos and 
groves of the golden apple. The sweet-lemon had due 
mention among its delicious varieties; and Henrietta 
having testified some curiosity respecting this anoma- 
lous production, nothing could be more natural than that 
he should visit all the conservatories of the suburbs, 
procure a specimen of the plant, and bring it in his ca- 
briolet to Myrtle Bank the following morning. 

Then he had a collection of Modinhas, exactly suited 
to her guitar; and some views of the Sierra Morena, 
forming a charming study for her pencil. He had, in 
fact, slightly mentioned them; and s/ie, half advisedly — 
half spontaneously — had affected considerable interest 
in the subject. But might he not secretly accuse her 
of having originated all these interviews; of having co- 
quetted with his attentions, with a view to a sudden dis- 
missal; or still worse, of having encouraged them in the 
hope of an eventual rec6nciliation? Her pride — the 
pride of beautiful five-and-twenty — ^spurned so abject a 
notion! She vowed that he should enter the green 
drawing-room no more; and though Tartar wandered 
backwards and forwards over the lawn, and round and 


146 


THE SEPARATE 


round through the shrubberies, waiting the accustomed 
arrival of his beloved master, morning and evening came 
and went for half a dozen following dajS| and Henriet- 
ta’s restlessness and irritability still demonstrated the 
absence of the Peninsula hero. 

Sir Henry was now alarmed in his turn. He had en- 
tertained, itris true^ no iritentionsof the kind called se- 
rious,^ touching the renewal of his connexion \vith the 
niece of Lady Mandeville. Circumstances wholly be- 
yond his powers of anticipation, had routed emotions^ 
which his better reason prompted him to combat and 
subdue. He had found in his alienated wife, a woman 
whose beauty was far more richly developed than that 
of the Hatty of Tunbridge Wells^ or the Lady Well- 
wood of the Green Dragon 5 and whose manners, tone,, 
conversation, and mode of life, might have served as a 
model to her sex; — who was now as wise as she was- 
fair — as good as she was gracious; — a companion worthy 
to render earth a paradise — an angel, gifted to train the 
children of earth for the skies. He did not pause to re- 
flect upon the matter: — he never gravely inquired of 
himself whether he had courage to confront the jeers of 
society, and woo her, and wed her o’er again — why 
not?” — but fell in love (and consequently out of all ca- 
pacity for rational argument, either with himself or other 
people,) in a style that only toO strongly resembled the- 
“over head and ears” infatuation of his days of subal- 
ternism and younger brotheriiood. 

It was not till he was refused admittance for the fourth 
time at the gate of Myrtle Bank, that he was stunned 
into a sufiiciently reasonable condition to deliberate on. 
the nature of his business there. On returning London- 
wards along the King’s Road, he began to assure him- 
self that Henrietta haxl certainly been making a fool of 
him; that she had deluded him into the snare for the 

n ose of laughing at him, and perhaps exposing him 
e laughter of the Bagots. Nay, as he reached those 
fields of many thistles, now converted into the aristo- 
cratic purlieus of Belgrave and Eaton Squares, and 
chanced to meet the eye of Lord Ingerfield, who was 
cantering down to Putney to make love to his cousin 
Sophy (vVhich Sophy had whispered to his lordship, on 
the preceding day, her own notions toucliing the posi-^ 


Maintenance. 


14^ 


fion of affairs at Myrtle Bank,) he readily detected an 
expression of saucy triumph in the dark blue eyes of 
the young Guardsman, which brought a flush of indig- 
nation into his own face. Idiot that he had been, not 
to detect the malicious views of Lady Well wood — hy- 
pocrite that she had been, was, and ever would be! — 
There was no Frederiek Dornton — no Miss Broadsden 
now — to be upbraided as the instigators of her errors 
and offences :-A-genuine, spontaneous, self-sufficing, art- 
ful malignity, was the source of all the courtesies of 
which he had so wantonly allowed himself to become the 
dupe! He had been a fool throughout the business; 
and he told himself so at least half a dozen times, be- 
tween the southern and northern extremities of Gros- 
venor Place. 

He was quite right, he had been a fool ! From the 
moment he found himself acting in opposition to his 
principles, hunting through nursery grounds for citron 
trees and portfolios for landscapes, for woman — a wife 
— tvhose previous conduct had induced him almost to 
turn her out of his house, and quite out of his soul, he 
should have reined up to parley and clearly ascertained 
her feelings and intentions in his own; but, above all, 
his former knowledge of Henrietta’s subservience of 
mind to those possessed of an influence over her heart, 
should have apprized him of the advantage he might ob- 
tain in making friends of the Bagots. Man and man 
meet on far more equal and confidential terms than man 
and woman ! He ought to have sought out the grave and 
honourable father of Sophia and Harriets placed^^iis po- 
sition before him, inquired into the nature of Lady 
Wellwood’s plans, projects; and sentiments, and de- 
termined his own conduct by a f^ir comparison between 
a life of domestic happiness enjoyed in defiance of the 
flouts and scoffs of the fashionable world; and a separate 
maintenance, enjoyed in all the proud consciousness of 
consistency and the applause of May Fair and its 
echoes. 


13 * 


148 


THE SEPARATE 


CHAPTER XXII. 


Oh ! God defend me ; Iww am I beset! 

What kind of catechizing call you this ? 

Much Ado About Nothiwo. 

But although Sir Henry Wei I wood had shown him- 
self so much more eager to consult the nurserymen of 
Hammersmith and bespeak the alliance of Tartar in hi» 
attack upon Myrtle Bank, than that of the neighbourly 
philosopher,^ Mr^ Bagot had as carefully and anxiously 
watched the progress of his manoeuvres as though he 
had throughout been engaged to play Horatio to our 
Hamlet. 

It is not to be imagined that a man of strong sense 
and feeling, such as the philanthropist of West Hill, 
would have been induced by the mere circumstance of 
lodgings at Hastings on the same Parade with Lady 
Mandeville, to adopt her beautiful niece as a chosen 
friend for his daughters. No sooner did he perceive 
the preference entertained by Harriet and Sophia for a 
lady living in a state of separation from her husband, 
than he prosecuted the most minute inquiries into the 
origin of so untoward a cit’cumstancej and exercised as 
scrupulous an investigation into the principles and con- 
duct of Lady Wellwood, as ever he had done into the 
properties of a new mineial or the nature of a curious 
fossil. After listening to the conflicting testimony of 
her foes and friends, and watching with an observant 
eye the nature of her emotions on the sudden death of 
her aunt, Mr. Bagot adopted the wise and just opinion 
that waywardness of temper, leading to a want of self- 
government on both sides, was the sole cause of the 
misfortune^ that Henrietta, a spoiled child at the period 
of her union with Sir Henry, had naturally behaved 


MAINTENANCE. 


149 

like one; that she had been ill brought up, ill-advised, 
and ill-conducted, as far as selfish, peevish, presuming 
egotism could influence her conduct. But he saw that 
the fermentation of her petulent youth was over — that a 
bright, clear, generous stream was the result of the pro- 
cess; — and had no hesitation in electing the lady of the 
separate maintenance to be the companion and protec- 
tress of his motherless girls. Nor did many months 
elapse, ere he began to unite her with them in the fa- 
therly fondness of his counsels and affections. 

There was, in fact, something peculiarly endearing in 
the character and manners of the Henrietta of Myrtle 
Bank ;---some thing of the softness of womanly penitence, 
unembittered by the galling consciousness mingling with 
the remorse of the fallen angel. She had faults to re* 
pent, but no crimes; — she had erred, but without sin- 
ning; — Her tears resembled the April showers — which, 
freshening the dust on which they fall,— 

“ In bright exhalement reach the skies f 

— not the big, heavy drops of a stormy atmosphere. 
Even in her gayest of gaiety there was something sub- 
dued and self- reprehending, as if checked by the wis- 
dom of a heart which felt it had no right to be too happy; 
and the very mildness of her demeanour, which custom 
had now rendered nature, was a sort of sacrifice laid on 
the altar of wounded affection. She had leapned to 
look on her former wilfulness as a sin; for it had been 
the cause of her grief and danger to him she loved. 

With paternal interest did Mr. Bagot mark the ap- 
plication with which Lady Wellwood devoted herself to 
the improvement of her mind, that she might leave no 
idle hour open for the approach of that worst of appari- 
tions, the spectre of the past. During the three years 
she had lived in intimate companionship with his family, 
he had seen her acquire more knowledge and a higher 
refinement of accomplishment than usually adorn her 
sex: but he had also seen, and with a degree of admi- 
ration amounting to respect, her eagerness to acquire 
wisdom as well as knowledge, — to form her character 
as well as her mind, — and subdue those errors of dis- 
position which characterized the* Henrietta of Lady 


150 


THE SEPARATE 


Mandeville’s mischievous fashioning.' She was not con- 
tent to adorn the garden with flowers, she chose that 
not a single weed should deteriorate their beauty. ^ 

Under these circumstances, the worthy old philoso- 
pher of West Hill judged it unnecessary to warn her 
against the adoration of the tribes of Ragley and Dur- 
ham, or the attentions of Sir Thomas Riddlesworth: 
common fame had placed its buoy over the sunken rock, 
and he knew that she was fore-armed against so notori- 
ous a danger. But on leafaing from his daughter Har- 
riet the scene which had occurred to interrupt their en- 
joyment at the fete at Watier’s, and from his daughter 
Sophy her suspicions that the Sir Henry Wellwood who 
had so ingratiated himself into their favour on that oc^ 
casion, and the mysterious visiter whose proceedings 
had caused poor Woolham’s gray head to shajce through 
nine long summer days of wonder, were one and the 
same individual, he felt strongly inclined to play the 
monitor. It was rumoured at West Hill that a gentle- 
man, evincing the devoted attention of a lover or a 
Collingbury, was admitted daily 'lEo make personal in- 
quiries after the headachs of his lovely neighbour^ and 
that a fine, tall, soldier-like looking man had been fre- 
quently seen in attendance on the invalid as she saun- 
tered tlirough her favourite shrubberies. Without one 
farther word of evidence, hfe was satisfied that the man 
thus favoured could be none other than the hero of Vit- 
toria, and Wellwood Abbey; and eagerly ^id he long to 
suggest the propriety of terminating all rumours, all 
scandal on the subject, and (contrary to his usual pre- 
cepts and practice) defying the opinion of The world, to 
secure the restoration of her own and her husband’s 
happiness. He was well assured, both by his own ob- 
yservations and the reports of his girls, that Sir Henry 
and Henriettawere both equally inclined to repent their 
share in that fatal parchment which had been so super- 
fluously blotted with hieroglyphics in their behalf, five 
years previous to the White’.s fete; and almost wished 
that his scientific proficiency bad initiated him into the 
secret, or circumstances into the power of making it 
pailable, by which the villany of Sir Giles Overreach 
is converted into the fifth-act catastrophe of a tragedy. 

But since he was* unable “to rail the seal from off 


MAINTENANCE. 


151 


the bond,” or decompose the fatal ink by which Gray’s 
Inn had ratified that barbarous deed (of separation,) he 
resolved, if he could not ^ive assistance, to give advice; 
and having armed himself with a curious botanical spe- 
cimen by way ot apology for his visit, cautiously un- 
closed the wicket connecting his own lawn with that of 
Myrtle Bank, and made his way. towards the house. 
We have seen that it was the habit of the Bagots as 
well as of Lady Wellwood, to use no ceremony on such 
occasions; to “come like shadows, so depart; but the 
venerable botanist, aware that visiters were now admit- 
ted at the villa, whose presence might seem to render 
liis own intrusive, resolved to go round to the front en- 
trance, for the purpose of giving due intimation of his 
approach, and an option of denial to his lovely pupil. 

It was in passing near the rustic pavillion appropri- 
ated by Lady Wellwood as a painting-room, and usually 
kept locked, that he discerned through the window a 
glimmer of white draperies, which induced him to pause 
on his way in the belief that his counsels were super- 
fluous. Since her ladyship’s nervous headachs were 
sufficiently amended to permit her recourse to the 
strong vapours of turpentine and copal varnish, he 
trusted that her heartach was also convalescent. A 
second glance sufficed to alter his opinions. Lady 
Wellwood was seated indeed before a portrait, long in 
progress, of her friend Harriet; but nor palette nor 
brush was in her hand; — her face was concealed in her 
handkerchief, while an open letter lay on the ground at 
her feet. 

For a moment the old man determined to retire un- 
observed; and select some happier moment for his ho- 
mily than one in which the sobs ofi bis penitent could 
probably overpower his own eloquence. But after 
moving a few steps along the gravel, he returned. 
Might not the present moment be important, — the letter 
critical; — could his advice be tendered in a more useful 
or persuadable season than the hour of affliction? — He 
took another glance through the window; when some- 
thing in the person or attitude of the weeping lady 
chancing to remind him of his own girls, — brought the 
father into his heart and the tears into his eyes! It oc- 
curred to him that hi$ own Sophy or Harriet might one 


152 the separate 

day need a father’s counsels in their domestic perplexi- 
ties; and having several times tapped at the window 
without notice or reply, he now raised his voice and re- 
quested admittance. 

Lady Well wood started; but quickly reassUrijd by 
the Well-known tones which were wont to convey to 
her ears 

“ Trutlis as sublime as ever Athens taught,” 

and precepts as consolatory as are to be drawn from 
sublunary sources, she hastened forward to unclose the 
door. Scott and Lochinvar have duly commemorated 
that union of 

“A smile on the lip and a tear in the eye,” 

which adds a new charm to beauty, and which is 
ornamental only to the beautiful; but the bard of Mar- 
mion has passed over that more touching expression of 
female loveliness when the smile struggles with the 
tear, and the lip quivers with the anguish of the effort. 
Such was the charm which embellished the countenance 
of Henrietta; when, advancing with extended hands 
and an attempt at sunshine to welcome her dear old 
friend, she found the attempt ineffectual and suddenly 
burst into a flood of tears! Mr. Bagot led her back to 
her seat, nor uttered a word till the paroxysm had 
subsided. As his visits were not appraisable, like those 
of Sir Jacob CoUingbury, at so much per minute, he 
had leisure to wait till her fair ladyship became more 
intelligible or intelligent — till she could either talk or 
listen. 

The sex of the sufferer considered, the alternative 
maybe readily inferred. It was Lady Wellwood who 
was the first to speak — it was Lady Wellwood who 
pointed to the ill-omened letter, — exclaiming, with 
spasmodic and laconic incoherence, — “He is gone!” 
— But notwithstanding that Mr. Bagot had been admit- 
ted 'into the confidence of her alarm on discoverino* 
the unauthorized absence of poor dear Tartar the pre- 
ceding week, he was not stupid enough to conjecture 
for a single second that her four-footed favourite af- 


MAINTENANCE* 


153 


forded on this occasion the antecedent to the personal 
pronoun. The possession of two daughters “ passing 
Tair,” tended to enlighten his mind on these interesting 
points. Although a philosopher, he was well aware 
that “ he,” — an apostrophic he — from the lips of youth- 
ful beauty, must refer to a single and singly-beloved 
individual^ and that “ he,” — an insulted he, — from the 
lips of Lady Wellwood, could regard only the Vitto- 
rian aide-de-camp. Satisfied that the moile arfd mo- 
tive of the departure thus abruptly announced would 
be gradually explained, he took his seat in the Gothic 
arm-chair usually occupied by his daughter Harriet 
while sitting for her portrait to the weeping artist be- 
fore him, and busied himself in a curious examination 
of the Dicotyledonous specimen in his hand; whereby 
he hoped at once to spare the blushes of Henrietta, and 
illuminate the pages of Loudon’s Magazine.. 

But, however prepared for an explanation, he did 
not anticipate so entire a confidence as that about to 
be bestowed upon him by Lady Wellwood; who, like 
Count Hamilton’s Golden Ram, seemed of opinion that 
stories which begin in the middle are extremely per- 
plexing.. She commenced, therefore, with the very 
commencement of her autobiography, dating the firs't 
sentence from Tunbridge, and concluding the last at 
Myrtle Bank; bespeaking, his attention by that touch- 
ing phrase— “ I am an orphan— I have neither friend 
nor relative to advise me; — assist me, dear sir, with 
your better judgment;”— and ending with the modest 
apostrophe, “And now that yon are acquainted with 
all my errors, all my afflictions, — what would you 
have me do?” 

Fortunately Mr. Bagot was rescued from the dan- 
ger of precipitate counsel in so delicate a dilemma. 
While engaged in perusing for a second time the letter 
which haefbeen a source of so many tears to his com - 
panion, and which expressed in such strong terms and 
with such yearning warmth of affection, the grief of 
Sir Henry Wellwood on finding himself banished from 
her presence, his indignant accusation that she had tri- 
fled “ with his attachment for the purpose of obtaining 
this petty triumph,” and his final determination to ban- 
ish himself for ever from a country containing his bane 


154 


THE SEPARATE 


and antidote, the idol and torment of his soul, the ob- 
ject of all his wishes, the obstacle to all his happiness” 
— John (the venal John of many guineas) made his ap- 
pearance to announce that “Mrs. Dorntou was in the 
drawing-room.” 

“Why did you admit her? — I told you I could not 
even see Sir Jacob Collingbury this morning,” 

“ I begyour pardon, my lady^ your ladyship said you 
could not see any gentleman;— hwt the gentleman has 
not called yet, my lady.” 

John 'seemed to understand Lady Well wood’s inde- 
finitives as well as Mr. Bagot had construed her per- 
sonal pronouns. He certainly had not divined her in- 
clinations, however, in admitting the visit of the mali- 
cious HLelena at so awkward a crisis. “ Return to the 
house, and tell Mrs. Dornton you could not find 
me,” said she, blushing while she suggested the un- 
truth. 

“No — no, my dear,” cried old Bagot, assuming for 
the first time a paternal tone of familiarity with the 
fair penitent whose confessions had been so frankly de- 
posited in his hands, and dismissing John to announce 
Lady Wellwood’s speedy arrival, “Exert yourself to 
see Mrs. Dornton; exert yourself to follow yOur usual 
occupations. Nothing incapacitates us for decision 
on points involving our connexion with the world, so 
much as to fix our attention exclusively and in solitude 
on the subject under, debate. You have made lip your 
mind, you say, that your separation from Sir Henry 
Wellwood having been effected at your own desire, and 
actuated by your own wilfulness, is a step that cannot 
be recalled. You, — -who were so easily tempted to an- 
nul an engagement the most important of any depen- 
dent oh the exercise of human will, — an engagement 
contracted in the presence of God — solemnized at his 
altar, and sanctified in his holy name, — are unwillino- 
to incur the scorn of the world by- cancelling a docu^ 
ment of mere legal obligation! You would ^condemn 
the man you love, and what is more, whom you respect, 
to the misery of a widowed home; — you would retain 
youi: own equivocal standing in society (for a woman 
separated from her husband, let the grounds of provo- 
cation be what they may, occupies at least a suspicious 


MAINTENANCE. 


155 


place in public regard) rather than condescend to own 
that Henrietta at five and twenty is wiser, and (suffer 
me to say it) heller than Henrietta in iier nonage! Let 
us dismiss the subject (or a while. I will return hi- 
ther in the evening, to tell you as (ruly as I would tell 
my own Sophy, my own Harriet, in what light I regard 
such a determination. Mean vvhile, oblige me by re- 
ceiving the visit of this Mrs. Dornton; and while dis- 
passionately weighmg the value (d her opinions and that 
of the triflers of society, against the approval of the 
virtuous and the wise, estimate your own discretion in 
sacrificing your peace of mind to the judgment of such 
false oracles/’ \ 


•CHAPTER XXIIl. 


Fair to no pnrpnsp, — artfiH to no end,— 

Young without lovers, — oldwithoul a friend. 

Pope. 

I/aigle Jiii dit. tout en cttlere, 

Caquel hon-hec, ma uiie, Atlieu! — Je n’ai que faire 
D'uiie t>atiillardp. a niacour; 

C'est un fort iiitichaiit caractere. 

La Fontaine. 

Had the amiable philanthropist of West Hill been 
aware that the visiter to whom he despatched his re- 
luctant disciple was to be classed in the order of the 
venomous reptiles, rather than in that of the ephemeral 
insects which he believed to possess an undue influence 
over Lady Wellwood’s mind, he would perhaps have 
spared her the effort. Had the lady of the swollen 
eyelids been led to suspect the purpose for which Mr. 
Bagot claimed this respite of judgment — this suspen- 
sion of her decision — she would certainly have detain- 
tVoL. 1. 14 


156 


THE SEPARATE 


ed him in the little rustic studio of Myrtle Grove for 
farther remonstrance. 

As she approached the portico, she saw that Mrs. 
Dornton*, who liad wandered forth to pillage her carna- 
tion beds, was standing with an uplifted eye-glass to 
watch the receding figure of Mr. Bagot; whose fine up- 
right person deceived her at a distance in the opinion 
that her friend Hatty had been wandering in her shrub- 
beries with the mysterious stranger described by Col- 
lingbury to poor dear Mrs. Delafield, and by Mrs. De- 
lafield to the sister-in-law of her poor dear departed 
spouse. Mrs. Dornton having visited Mortlake the 
preceding week, to grumble her complaints of the in- 
attention of her beloved Frederick in neglecting to 
procure her tickets for White’s and Watier’s, and his 
insulting notion of putting her otf with one for the Ge- 
nerals’ ball, (the pis-aller of that festive period,) found 
her murmurs echoed by the lamentations of Sir Henry 
WellwQod’s sister over the errors of their former friend, 
—the degenerate niece of Lady Mandeville, — the false 
and frail Henrietta, After many a fruitless conjecture, 
touching the name and nature of the young gentleman 
who was described by Sir Jacob to be so handsome, so 
prepossessing, and the proprietor of so fine a horse, 
Mrs. Dornton determined to appease her curiosity by a 
visit to Myrtle Bank 5 where a course of dexterous 
cross-examination might, perhaps, avail to determine 
whether Sir Thomas Riddlesworth, Lord Ragley, or 
the Duke of Durham, were the favoured individual 
causing so singular an acceleration in the pulse of her 
susceptible friend. She still trusted to discover that 
the offender was some far less illustrious individual; 
that her dear Henrietta (whom she now trebly detested 
as the remote and innocent cause of her own disastrous 
marriage,) had been committing herself by a flirtation 
with some Mr. Smith or Captain Brown:-— that her 
fault was ungilded by the false glitter of fashion. 

But if the Helena of the Tunbridge Rocks, in her 
pink satin hat and feathers, formed a disadvantageous 
contrast to the fair Henrietta Broughton, what might 
not be said of the distance from the graceful dignified 
Lady Well wood to the gaudy, fretful, meretricious, 
shrewdsh-looking woman whom she now conducted into 


MAINTENANCE. 


157 


Ihe green retreat of her luxurious boudoir^ and whose 
hollow looks, rouge-seared complexion, factitious youth- 
fulness, and sneering malignity, almost warranted the 
contempt lavished upon her by the spendthrift who, 
like the file in the fable, had proved too hard even for 
a viper. 

“ Prom loveless youth to unrespected age,” 

this “ veteran of the world ” had pursued her heartleSs 
career, without conferring or enjoying one day of hap- 
piness: and she now directed her morning’s airing as 
far as Putney, solely in the hope of irritating or morti- 
fying the victim of her former manoeuvres. 

“ What on earth could tempt you, my dear Lady 
\Vellwood,” said she, fixing her eyes on the tear-stained 
cheeks of her friend, “to take those Bagot girls to 
White’s? You must be aware that they never were in- 
tended by art or nature for the beau monde; and you 
only render yourself and them ridiculous by pushing 
’them beyond their sphere. I understand too, that poor 
Sir Henry Wellwood was very much hurt by your ap- 
pearing at a fete where you must have been aware that 
his presence was indispensable.” 

Was he?” mechanically answered Henrietta^ 
‘scarcely able to hear even the name of poor Sir Henry 
Wellwood without tears. 

“'Dornton tells me that it is a favourite amusement 
at the Guards’ Club to watch Lord Ingerfield making a 
fool of that silly little cousin of his, — that giggling So- 
phy Bagot.” 

“ It IS a diversion they should make the most of,” 
cried Lady Wellwood, rallying her spirits; “for he 
will soon be authorized to resent the liberty: — in the 
course of a few weeks she will become Lady Ingerfield. 
Mr. Bagot has already given his consent.” 

“Poor Harriet! — What a blow to her pride to see 
her younger sister become a Viscountess! — I hope there 
is plenty of willow among the groves of West Hill.” 

“ I fancy we are more likely to stand in need of 
oi’ange-blossom. There will be another wedding before 
the end of the summer.” 

^‘Indeed!” said Helena, fancying she was nowon 


158 


THE SEPARATE 


the brink of the secret; and that a divorce was about to 
give freedom to the lady and lor<l of the Abbey, and 
leave them to the formation of more auspicious ties. 
“And so then, after all, the separate maintenance will 
end, where it oi;ji,ht to have begun, with ” 

“ It iHU end where it began,” said Lady Well wood, 
with spirit, ‘‘in misrepresentation and misery to my- 
self. J did not refer to my own affairs: it is long — very 
long — since 1 have possesse<l a friend sufficiently trust- 
worthy to claim my confidence. I alluded to the mar- 
riage of Mr. Bagot’s eldest daughter with the Duke of 
Durham, of w hich the soleinnizati«m is fixed for August. 
He will then be five-and-lwenty, and, according to his 
father’s will, of age.” 

“ Humph I” growle<I Mrs. Dornton, provoked beyond 
measure, aru! startled into sincerity, ‘‘Then after all,: 
perhaps, it may have been the Duke whom Cidlingbury 
so often surprised here, and whose visits were the cause 
of so much agitatioti to yoursell? Y«)U really should 
have been more guarded, my dear! — for though you 
live so little in the world that public opitiion may seem 
unimportant, the voice of s«»ciety always finds its lime 
and place to reach one’s ear, 

“ It is sometimes very h)ng on its journey, or yao 
would have heani of Harriet’s and Sophy’s appnmching 
marriages, which have been arranged this fortnight 
past.” 

“To say the truth, my attention has been engn^ssed 
by the scandalous sttnies they have tended to originate 
and circulate respecting yourself. You have no notion 
of the romances Mrs. Delafield has thought fit to com- 
pile on the subject.” 

“ 1 wish to have none. She is a very inoffensive 
woman, and must have been misled by the misrepresen- 
tation of others.” 

“ CoHingbury is the greatest tittle-tattle on earth. 
If I were you. I would bririg him to account pr4*lty se- 
verely lor spreading scandal at my expense. What bu- 
siness had he to make mysteiies concerning your visi- 
ters? I have little doubt he knew' the ‘ young and hand- 
^^'llifiAiy ’looking man ’ by sight as well as you or 

“I fancy no/,” replied Henrietta, with some dignity. 


MAINTENANCE. 159 

“ I am not aware that he ever saw Sir Henry Wellwood 
before.” 

“Sir Henry Wellwood !” cried Mrs. Dornton, drop- 
ping her eye-glass with amazement. “ Why then you 
are about to form some amicable arrangement? — Surely 
it might have been decently settled by your lawyers.” 

“There is no arrangement necessary,” replied Lady 
Wellwood, losing her courage and becoming confused 
in her expressions. “ Every thing of that kind was 
settled during my Aunt Mandeville’s lifetime, five years 
ago.” 

“Then what in the world brings him to Myrtle Bank^ 
to play the spy, or the lover? — or ** 

“All vindictive feeling has long been at an end be- 
tween us,” said Henrietta, piqued into the assumption 
of self-cqmmandj “and I see nothing remarkable in 
the fact that two persons, whose domestic union was in- 
terrupted solely by infirmity of temper, should meet on 
the footing of a friendly acquaintance. 

“To form a laughing-stock of society!” cried Hele- 
na, bursting into a contemptuous fit of merriment. 
“Just conceive how it will amu§e the world to discover 
that you two, who could not live under the same roof 
without quarrelling, and who actually made public their 
discussions by a squabble in a common inn, are playing 
the fool by a tender courtship in your dotage! To be 
sure, now Mrs. Allstone is settled in Yorkshire, Well- 
wood must find the Abbey so dull that even a family 
fight might be an amendment; and Myrtle Bank will be 
a sad incumbrance to you when the Bagots no longer af- 
ford a pretext for your appearing at all the balls of the 
season, and driving into town every morning.” 

“No!” said Henrietta, trying to encounter malice 
with malice. “ I shall retain a very fair apology for a 
little dissipation, in my visits to Durham House; and 
the Ingerfields have already purchased a splendid house 
in Grosvenor Place.” 

“ Well, take care you don’t interfere with their bill-^ 
ing and cooing. It is very unsafe to intrude upon peo- 
ple during their honey-year. One sometimes finds one- 
self Madame de Trop.” 

“I have no fear on that head,” said Henrietta, point- 
edly. “ Having no object to attain, nor evil wishes to 
14 * 


160 


THE SEPARATE 


gratify in interrupting the domestic happiness of my 
married friends, 1 do not apprehend they will ever have 
cause to repent having extended their hospitality to- 
wards me.” 

Mrs. Dornton, furious at the reproof her malignity 
had courted, novv rose to take leave; and poor Lady 
Wellwood almost regretted her departure. She. dread- 
ed to find herself alone, atid under the necessity of ex- 
amining herself steadfastly v\ hether she repenteil her 
former errors; whether her pride were still sufficiently 
pielominant to harden her heart against its duties, its 
natural ailections, its hopes of future happiness. 

She had now heard the worst. “She should become 
a laughing-stock to the world!” But it was not by that 
Bagot-like portion of the world, wh(»se respect and 
good-will she had been conciliating by b)ur years of pru- 
dent, amiable, and graceful self-government. It was 
the world of Dorntons and Broadsdens, of Collingbu- 
rys and Appleburys; and if, perchance, the merry jest of 
an Itigerfield, t»r the caustic sentence of a Byron, were 
venter! on her feminine inconsistency, the annoyance 
would be temporary, the laugh would expire unechoed, 
the cynic taunt soon be forgotten, — while her own peace 
of mind remained secure for life. What — what — were 
all the sneers of all the multitudes assembled at that very 
moment, by the public rejoicings in the public parks, in 
honour of the return of peace — compared with the joy 
she should experience in listening to Wellw(»od''s grate- 
ful thanks for her concessions; in feeling the kin<l, good, 
sensible, forgiving Mrs. Allstone locke<l in her arms; in 
renewing her rides, drives, walks, an<l whispers, among 
those charming groves on the banks of Trent, which bad 
witnessed the only truly happy moments of her life; in 
being able to close her eyes in sleep (unaiiled by Sir 
Jacob’s juleps) with her conscience cleareii of (he stain 
of ingratitude towards the man who had chosen her as 
the prtncr of his honest heart and brilliant destinies; 
and the still more deadly sin of ingratitude towards 
that Providence, whose blessings she had converted into 
a curse. 

Long befoi’e she contrived to end this interesting ar- 
gument to her own satisffiction, two important counsel- 
lors were enlisted in the cause of the contending party; — 


MAINTENANCE. 


161 


Mr. who was just returned from town, and Sir 

Henry Well wood, whose foot he^ had suspended on the 
step of a travelling-carriajiie, the post boys of which had 
their ticket made out for the Barnet road. The urbane 
and conciliating old man found no difficulty in per- 
suading the traveller that it might be expedient to visit 
Myrtle Bank, on his way to Yorkshire, to take leave of 
the Allstones; in order that, if Henrietta could be in- 
duced to accompany him in his tour on the Rhine, she 
-might have leisure for her preparations. 

But, however great the eloquence of eitl’.er leading or 
junior counsel, it was not put to the trial. A single 
glance at Henrietta’s countenance, as he entered the 
green drawing-room, served to convince .Sir Henry 
Well wood that a rainb(»w was in the sky; while a single 
flood of tears wept upon the shoulder of the olive green 
surtout, sufficed to convince her ladyship that her hus- 
band’s soul had still no other idol! 

It may be doubted whether the philosopher of West 
Hill experienced greater triumph and greater joy on the 
morning which united his tw’o beloved girls to husbands 
‘eminent equally in rank and worthiness, than on the af 
ternoon vvhich drew a tear from his old eyes over the 
“one sinner that repented” at Myrtle Bank. 

Sir Henry and Lady Wtllwood were discreet enough 
to afford ample time for the discussions and imperti- 
nencies of the gossips of society, by a prolonged tour 
on the continent; a tour which might almost be termed 
bridal. Alter a winter passed at Vienna, and another 
at Naples, in the enjoyment of new pleasures and the 
acquirement of nevv accomplishments, thev returned to 
their native country to discover that the affiir of the se- 
parate maintenance was already extinguished by fifty 
newer scandals: — to find the Duke of Durham turned 
Cabinet minister;— Lord Ingerfield fox-hunter;— Byron 
married, parted, banished;— Dornton benched, white- 
washed, and sent to Coventry; — his wife and old Letitia 
^‘fighting their battles o’er again;” at the Cheltenham 
card-tabi"es; — Mrs. Delafield married to Sir Jacob; — 
and Blanche about to be united to the heir of Shoreham 

Castle. . 

Among the earliest tenants of the new wing, (now 
furnished with the interesting product of their Italian 


1B2 


THE separate maintenance. 


researches,) were the Allstones, the Durhams, and the 
Ingerfields. But of all the party, with the exception of 
little Harry Wellwood, — who, on this occasion, was 
first introduced to a game of romps by his Yorkshire 
cousins Tom and Arabella, — the happiest was Mr. Ba- 
"ot; who not only regarded the domestic- happiness of 
his hosts as the work of his own hands, but had the rap- 
ture of transmitting to the Royal Society some curious 
specimens of arragonite, discovered by himself in a ne- 
glected mine in the neighbourhood of Wellwood Abbey. 


I 







DITORC^E. 


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Ms^cike. 


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CHAPTER' I. 


Th3 prudent wife or careful matron ia much more serviceable to the worfd' 
than blustering heroines or virago queens. 

Goldsmith; 

It is an easy thing, and a very pleasing exercise for 
the garrulity of common-place people, to dissert on the 
wickedness of parents who incite their children to in- 
terested marriages^ and on the vileness of children who 
(being men and women) regard any other influence in 
their matrimonial choice, than that of pure and disin- 
terested aflection. An alliance arising out of a few 
weeks’ intiiiiacy kindled in the crush of a ball-room, is 
regarded (by the fair of May Fair) as a far more re- 
spectable modification of the marriage vow, than one 
originating in consideration for the comforts and de- 
cencies of life, in the counsel of mutual friends, and 
the eligibility of an honourable and prosperous home. 

When Amelia Kendal bestowed lier hand on Mr. 
Allanby of Allanby Hall, a man with ten thousand per 
annum and a gray pigtail, nothing could exceed the 
disgust with which the conduct of her father and mo- 
ther in promoting the match, was discussed by the fa- 
thers and mothers of half the unmarried girls of her 
own age and set. Not one of them would have al- 
lowed a daughter of their own to humiliate herself by 
a connexion so bare-facedly interested! They were all 
satisfied that Amelia looked .upon Mr. Allanby with 
detestation; that her parents had dragooned her into 
the marriage; and that they would live to repent their 
misdoings. 

The new Mrs. Allanby was one of ten children, the 
offspring of the younger son of a younger brother. Her 
mother, 

A poor, a patient, yet a happy wife, 

Stealing when daylight’s common tasks were done, 


166 


A DIVORCEE. 


An hour for mother’s work, — and sing^ing- low 
Wliile her tired husband and her children slept, — 

was one of those luckless daughters of Eve who mark 
the annual progress of life by a yearly addition to their 
Redundant little olive branches; without regard to the 
difficulty of procuring them an a<lequate supply of bread 
and milk, — of muslin fiocks and blue jackets. Though 
fair enough to have set A1 mack’s in an uproar, and 
high-born enough to have graced the festivities of the 
court, all the years of her beauty were devoted to pe- 
nurious housewifery, all the animation of her cheerful 
temper subdued by the heavy pressure of privation. 

♦ She had scarcely dared to rejoice in the vigour and 
growth of her children, from the apprehension of an 
incapability to maintain them in the sphere apportioned 
to their barren birthright; and her home, instead of ring- 
ing with the j<»yous carol of their youthful voices, was 
either gloomy with the ill-humour of a mortifietl and dis- 
appointed man, or noisy with the insolence of ill-paid 
and over-tasked servants — the clamour of creditors — 
the bitterness of want! — In such a region, one solitary 
and horrible apparition seems to concentrate all the ter- 
rors of human misery — even the gaunt spectral, griping 
hag called Poverty! The Kendals had no leisure tode- 
vise any other shape for misfortune. Sentimental wdcs 
were out of the question. Where “fire, meat, and 
clothes — meat, clothes, and fire,” are often lacking and 
always scanty, it is difficult to cultivate fieroic passions, 
or indulge in refined emotions. The hands and feet of 
the young Kendals were too cohl, and their broadcloth 
too threadbare, to admit of much sensibility. For the 
first fifteen years of their lives, their notions of luxury 
consisted in an abundant dinner, plenty of clean linen, 
a warm comfortable bed-room with not above two bro- 
thers or sisters to share it, shoes without patches, and 
hosen without darns; but at the expiration of that pe- 
riod, aw'onderful stroke of fortune befell the little house- 
hold. The discontented father of the ten needy chil- 
dren came into possession of a fortune of fifteen hun- 


A DIVORCEE. 


1C7 


^Ited per annum^ and this influx of prosperity, which 
might have been accounted beggary by any other fa- 
mily of similar dignity of pedigree, was to them as the 
abundance of Aboulcaseni's treasury. For the first 
time the needy family ate unchecked of good vvheaten 
bread, and luxuriated in garments unadorned by the 
profuse embroidery of the needle. Mr. Kendal took 
a house in Bath for the benefit of his daughter’s educa- 
tion, and his own rubbery and his wife found a spare 
moment (for the first time since her married life) to sit 
down and breathe, unmolested by the active duties of 
the cupboard and the wardrobe. 

The effects of this sudden release from peremptory 
occupation, produced a mood of mind somewhat re- 
sembling that pleasing sensation of the body — that itch- 
ing described by the ancient philosopher, as consequent 
on the removal of manacles. Mrs. Kendal experienced 
a sudden gush of domestic philosophy; and though there 
may be “ more things in Heaven and Earth ” than w'ere 
dreamt of in it, it was both comprehensive and con- 
clusive. After reviewing carefully those sixteen years 
of productiveness and toil, of weekly bills, nursery 
grievances, and apothecaries’ accounts; after remem- 
bering how many pangs it had cost her to abridge the 
indulgences of her children; to refrain from the liberal 
promptings of gentle blood, derived from the early ha- 
bits of her father’s house; to abstain from generous ac- 
tions and even from charitable duties; after reflecting 
that she had been unable to call one hour of the twenty- 
four her own, for the cultivation of her tastes, or even 
for the self-communing, indispensable to all who live — 
and all who die , — she came to a conclusion that not 
one of her dear girls, if she could prevent it, should 
ally herself with a poor man. 

Mrs. Kendal w’as well aware, mean while, of the im- 
portance attached, among the sublime and beautiful of 
the Bath coteries, to the designation of a “ charming 
young man,” whether rich or poor. She was not blind 
to the value of personal and mental attractions; but she 
saw that merit of mind and body is too often made to 
cloak a deficiency of estate. The prudent mother en 
tertained a lively remembrance of the period when, as 
a lovely girl in her teens, she had been warranted in the 

tVoL. r. 15 


168 


A DIVORCEE. 


folly of marrying Sir Vavasor Kendal’s cousin Fred, 
(with two hundred and fifty pounds per annum in ad- 
dition to her own seventy) by the superiority of his per- 
sonal and mental attractions. She had married for 
love — had united herself to “the most charming — the 
most elegant young man about town.” Yet among the 
pains and penalties of adapting three hundred and 
twenty pounds to the maintenance of eighteen hungry 
and full-grown individuals, during the three hundred 
and sixty-five days of the year, the charming young 
man had become a sulky brute, and the elegant young 
man most profanely addicted to brandy and water. 
She had seen him grow more and more fretful at the 
disappointment of every fresh application to his cousin. 
Sir Vavasor, for a small place, or rising clerkship; and 
more and more frightful when every spring a young 
child was added and an aged relative subtracted from 
the family stock, without tlie addition of half-a-crown 
to his means of maintenance, — whether by legacy, do- 
nation, or salary. She had seen Cousin Fred, come to 
be voted a bore by the Baronet, and a bear by every 
one else; monopolizing the fire from his poor little red- 
nosed children, — and swallowing five mutton chops for 
his own share, when there were only thirteen left for 
the otjier seventeen individuals of the family. When a 
rich uncle sent the thrifty mother some old Malaga du- 
ring a severe illness, the cliarming young man appro- 
priated it without compunction; when a kind god-mo- 
ther bestowed some pieces of nankeen on a fine little 
boy (one of their last three or four specimens of the in- 
fant Hercules) it had found its way to and fro the tailor 
of “ the elegant young man,” in the shape of a fashiona- 
ble dressing-gown. No, nol no more marrying for 

love in the family!— a comfortable home — a respectable 
competence — aftbrded the truest ground -work tor wed- 
ded happiness. Having snatched, between the pauses 
of her stitchery, a daily hour or two to impart to her 
daughters those elegant accomplishments in which she 
bad formerly been a proficient, she could not bear that 
their graces of mind should be benumbed by the touch 
ot poverty,— despised by a needy husband,— and ren- 
dered sinful by encroaching on the duties inseparable 
from a growing family. 


A DIVORCEE. 


169 


It must be owned that the girls were, or professed to 
be, of the same opinion. They could not yet forget the 
gowns of serge, and hard fare, and hard beds, and de- 
ficiency of all means of service towards others, which 
had shut up the expanding impulses of their youth. 
They still remembered liaving envied the fat wife of the 
squire, her power of distributing coals and blankets 
during the winter, to individuals still nearer to freezing 
point than themselves^ and having cried when they de- 
tected their mother weeping over her inability to pro- 
cure sea-air and medical advice for a little sick brother, 
who seemed likely to be released by a consumption 
from the impending w'oes of starvation. Rose, Clara, 
Helen, and Amelia, unanimously agreed with mamma, 
that comfort was a very comfortable thing; -that a car- 
riage is a mode of locomotion preferable to an umbrella 
and pattens in rainy weather; and competence an indis- 
pensable basis to the exercise of every Christian virtue. 
With that inestimable parent, indeed, fortitude and pa- 
tience had been all in all; but they had no objection to 
display their excellence in some other branch of good- 
ness. All four were accustomed to say and sing in 
harmonious quartette, that a love-match was a crying 
evil. 

The consequences of this rash judgment may easily 
be predicted. No sooner did they arrive at marrying 
years, than Cupid avenged himself by uniting Rose 
with a recruiting Captain of Dragoons, who was not so 
much as cousin to a Sir Vavasor; Helen with the grand- 
son of a Welch baronet, the head of the family being 
heir to six hundred per annum; and Clara, the lovely 
Clara, with a young clergyman, waiting for a living 
from an Irish Marquis, to whose whelphood he had been 
travelling tutor! 

For three successive springs did Mrs. Kendal renew 
her tears on packing up the slender trousseaux of her 
misguided girls; when Captain and Mrs. Stretton set 
off for their quarters at Sunderland, when Mr. and 
Mrs. Madoc Williams departed for their cottage in 
Cardiganshire; when the Reverend Montagu and Mrs. 
Langston jingled off in a hack post-chaise to their cura- 
cy in Lincolnshire. She had very little patience with 
the merits of her three sons-in-law. It was enough for 


170 


A £)ivon6E£:. 


her that her graceful, gentle, lovely girls were gone to 
darn away their lives as she had done before them^ to 
be sworn at on rainy days, and to bring forth unwelcome 
children. 

“Amelia!” she exclaimed, on more than one occa- 
sion to her remaining girl, (her favourite if the truth 
must be told—for her health had been more delicate 
than the rest, more resembling that of the consumptive 
little brother than the robustness of Captain Kendal of 
the -^th, or Lieut. Kendal of H. M. S. Orion; Bob, 
the Lombard Street clerk, Henry, the writer at Bom- 
bay, or Vavasor, or Fred., the two grammar-school 
urchins still in leather caps and corduroys) “Amelia! 
dearest, beware of letting your feelings run aw'ay with 
you as your sisters have done. My sweet child, you 
are not strong enough to rough it like the rest of them. 
You are not fit for privations and fatigue. Be wise in 
time; do not dance so often with Bob^s friend, that 
young ensign of the Guards. Three times I have been 
tormented into giving my consent against my better 
judgment. Amelia, — I will never — never sanction youY 
marriage with a man unable to maintain you. — Think 
better of it; consider what it is to consign your youth to 
drudgery and mortification, unsupported by the consent 
and blessing of a mother. Think better of it, dearest 
Amelia; — and do not dance with Charles Beverley 
again.” 

It may be doubted whether Miss KendaPs thinkings 
on the subject were for the “better” or worse. But 
in the sequel'. Ensign Beverley of his Majesty’s Cold- 
stream Guards, took his departure for London per Bath 
mail three weeks before the expiration of his leave of 
absence; — Mr. Allanby, of Alianby Hall, having ar- 
rived in the interim for the cure of his gout; with a let- 
ter of introduction to the Kendals from their relative 
Sir Vavasor, the neighbour of his own estates in the 
County of Westmoreland. 

The graceful and elegant character of Amelia’s beau- 
ty proved irresistible to old Allanby; the “measureless 
content” gathered within compass of old Allanby’s ten 
thousand a-year, proved irresistible to Amelia. The 
bells of the Abbey Church soon chimed in honour of 
their nuptials. Curate Langston arrived on the top of 


A DIVORCEE. 


171 


a cross country coach to perform the ceremony; Mrs* 
Kendal for once smiled over the packing of a daughter’s 
wedding clothes; and all the smaller coteries of Bath 
were lost in horror and contempt of so venal an alliance 
They could hardly swallow the bride-cake for sneering 
at the baseness of the bride. 


CHAPTER 11. 


Earlier things do seem as yesterday. 

But I’ve no recollection of the hour 
They gave my hand to Aldobraud. 

Matoriw. 


We have already stated that Amelia was fair and 
gentle; and those who saw her depart in her stately 
equipage for Allanby Hall by the side of the man to 
whom she had just vowed before the altar, — love, ho- 
nour, and obedience — the man with a short pigtail and 
long rent-roll — would probably upbraid our phrase as 
far short of her claims to admiration. 

By the side of Mr. Allanby, she did, indeed, appear 
an angel; for nothing could be more awkward and un- 
gainly than his personal appearance. That very gir- 
lishness which formed, in the opinion of the many the 
real objection to the match, seemed to augment v/hen 
tier slight figure and delicate features were opposed in 
close contrast to those of the son of Anak to whom she 
had been tempted to unite herself. On her arrival at 
the old Hall, the gray-headed steward and housekeeper 
treated her as a child; while the Westmoreland bump- 
kins invariably qualified her as “ the Missie.” There 
was in fact nothing matronly about Amelia. She had 
Been the youngest of the girls, the pet, the subordinate; 
had never been admitted to family consultations, nor 
iiistructed in the forms' and customs of society. Her 


ii2 


A DIVORCEE. 


mother was too actively busied in domestic duties to 
attend to the formation of her mind. Her brother 
John had taught her to write and draw, — her sister 
Rose to read;- — Helen had been her preceptress of the 
needle;— while Clara, who was a bit of a blue, under- 
took the department of the belles lettres; and whereas 
little Amelia became a beautiful dancer by dint of 
watching her elder brothers and sisters, she was left 
to become a Christian by the operation of following 
them to church. But the lessons there inculcated, were 
neither explained nor deeply imprinted in her young 
heart; and at the moment of her election to the so- 
vereignty of Allanby Hall, with its powers and privi- 
leges of good and evil, it would have been difficult to 
point out a young person whose moral principles were 
more vague, or whose ignorance of books and me?l 
more positive. Instinct had done something for her; 
but instinct is a blind guide for the labyrinths of the 
nineteenth century. She was a pretty, pleasing, ele- 
gant good-humoured, well intentioned girl; but was 
that a wife for Mr. Allanby of Allanby, — a man in the 
fifty-eighth year of his age, and hundred and sixteenth 
of his judgment.^ 

The project of his marriage with Amelia did not, we 
must admit, indicate this superhuman maturity of in- 
tellect. Marriages are not always dependant on the 
understanding of the hes or shes by whom they are per- 
petrated; and whether made in heaven or elsewhere, 
it appears that the contracting parties have little share 
in the act and deed. Almost every philosopher of an- 
cient and modern times has been blessed or cursed with 
a disproportionate helpmate; but from Socrates to Mil- 
ton, from Milton to Byron, never was there a genius 
more indiscreetly mated than the esquire of Allanby. 

Considered, however, in any other relation of life 
than as the husband of Amelia Kendal, he vvas a highly 
estimable and highly esteemed man; — a man of superior 
endowments, — of elevated mind, — of lofty purposes. 
He had won a name in the senate, almost in the history 
of his country: was the originator of several important 
institutions, and the projector of various permanent 
benefits to his native county. Although in some mea- 


A bivoiicEfcl. 


sure removed from public life bj that foe to patrician 
activity an hereditary and invincible gout, his coun- 
sels were still sought by the guardians of the national, 
welfare, his opinions quoted and his arbitration re* 
spected. Mr. Allanbyof Allanby, was known to have 
refused a peerage; to have declined in more than one 
instance a post in the administration; and to have tamed 
down political feuds, where nothing but the ascendency 
of a strong mind and unblemished name would have 
sanctioned his interference. Though the urgency of 
his public and private studies had tended to seclude 
him during his youth and maturity, frOm that influence 
of female society which might have rendered his man- 
ners more indicative of the superiority of his mind, he 
had still enough of chivalrous feeling warm in his heart 
to be captivated by the extreme loveliness of the youth- 
ful cousin of his neighbour Sir Vavasor Kendal; and to 
fancy that so fair a creature could not prove unworthy 
of transmitting to posterity the name of Allanby, of that 
ilk. The circumstances of his grave face and lofty re- 
putation, had hitherto secured him from all cognizance of 
the extensive class of pretty, pleasing, good-humoured, 
inoffensive,”— empty-headed, trifling,* indolent girls, 
who throng the quadrille-dancing coteries of Bath and 
London. All such angelic insipidities having naturally 
kept aloof from a man with spectacles on nose, and 
pigtail on wig, he was quite incapable of conceiving 
the tediousness of light conversation,— the heavy 
weight of frivolity,— the dispiriting dulness of empty 
gaie”y. He had nothing to say which Amelia could 
understand, — she had not a word to utter which he did 
not wish unsaid. While listening during his marriage 
tour to the puzzling no-meaning of her remarks, and 
noticing with wonder her false deductions of deficiency 
of observation, the sober bridegroom recurred \\it\i 
amazement to the smiles and attention he had seen be- 
stowed upon her discourse in certain evening parties of 
which she was the ornament. Concluding that these 
tributes were rendered to the charms of her conversa- 
tion, he overlooked the magnetism existing between 
the bright blue eyes and ruby lips of beautiful eigh- 
teen, and the infatuated and adoring heart of five and 
twenty. 


174 


A DIVORCEE. 


Had Mr. Allanbj been thirty-three years younger in 
wit and wisdom, even he perhaps might have disco- 
vered merit (at least the merit of naiveteYin the child- 
ish inanity of Amelia’s comments. But before they 
reached Westmoreland, he had begun to hope that Mrs. 
Allanby would be too much engrossed by domestic 
pursuits and the duties of her station, to interfere with 
his occupations. Without indulging for a moment the 
chimerical notion of commencing her education anew, 
of strengthening the feebleness of her mind, or culti- 
vating and enlarging the faculties of her heart, he con- 
tented himself with trusting she would divide her time 
between that portion of the libraries of Messrs. Ebers, 
Andrews, and Bull, comprehended under the octavo 
branch of “Novels and Romances, Poetry and the 
Drama,” which she avowed as her favourite branch of 
literature; and the execution of a considerable variety 
of fairy-like garlands and bouquets of satin stitch, such 
as had been pointed out to him as miraculous on the 
handkerchiefs and collerettes of her sisters and mother. 
He was no advocate for music. Even had Amelia’s 
Been of a higher order tlian the noisy variations which 
four years of Bath instruction enabled her to rattle 
through, he would have preferred a quiet house. But 
reading and working, working and reading, with the 
beautiful gardens and scenery of Allanby for recreation, 
might suffice to keep his angel fully occupied for the 
remainder of his, if not of her ow n days. An annual 
visit to Bath for the benefit of his gout, would at once 
gratify her with the society of her own family, and 
supersede all necessity for London: a place of which 
Amelia knew nothing, and which her husbandwas anx- 
ious to forget 

Mean while, if tlie Westmoreland wortiiy felt disap- 
pointed in the result of his matrimonial experiment, 
Amelia was scarcely less disagreeably disenchanted of 
lier dream. In persuading herself to accept Mr. Al- 
lanby, she had pictured with a glowing imagination the 
delights that opulence would add to the pleasure she 
had hitherto enjoyed. She forgot that these delights 
were to be tasted at a distance from her family; that 
the magnificent home to which she must remove would 
he uncheered by the brother-and-sisterly hilarity which 


A DiVOilCEE. 


175 


had of late years rendered liers so cheerfal^ that the 
cordiality of affection in which she had hitherto existed 
tnust end^ and that instead of the familiar tenderness of 
eleven human creatures, warm with the life blood beat- 
ing in her own heart, all must henceforward be stately, 
formal, and uncongenial. Little did she imagine that 
the dreary grandeur of Allanby Hall would teach her to 
regret the littered parlour and hand-to-mouth ragged- 
ness of the noisy, merry, loving home of her childhood. 
She had been brought up in the frankness of a large 
family circle; where every thing may be said, because 
nothing is critically or harshly considered; she had no 
notion of the conventional hypocrisies of good-breeding, 
and was induced to condole with Mr. Allanby upon 
the extreme dulness of his residence and meagreness 
of his neighbourhood, as sincerely as if they were not 
dear and sacred in his eyes as a family heritage of 
four hundred years’ antiquity! 

But Mr. Allanby possessed the indulgence insepara- 
ble from good sense; and felt that he had no right to be 
angry with the defects of a person he had removed from 
her congenial sphere. Instead of taunting his wife with 
a remark that the neighbouring villages being his own, 
he had taken care to secure them from the small squire- 
archy, and gossiping widow, and spinsterhood, — the re- 
tired attorneys and aspiring nobodies, forming the ma- 
terial of those nightly card-tables and dances on the 
carpet, which presented poor Amelia’s heau ideal of 
cheerfulness and social enjoyment;— -instead of bespeak- 
ing her respect for the dignity which she called dul- 
ness, — he kindly promised to animate their domestic 
circle with the presence of his sister Lady Carmychael, 
and her two daughters; under whose sanction and ad- 
vice he fancied the inexperienced Amelia would soon 
qualify herself to do the honours of his house to the 
dignitaries of the county. 

But, alas! the arrival of these three lofty dames tend- 
ed only to increase a thousand fold the embarrassment 
and sense of weariness experienced by Mrs. Allanby. 
Lady Carmychael was a well-bred automaton, wound 
up to go through the evolutions of human lite without 
pause or deviation. Wholly destitute ot feeling, she 
had never swerved by the millionth fraction of an inch 


176 


A DIVORCEE. 


from the rectilinear routine of exact decorum;— and 
havino- always anticipated that her distinguished brother, 
should he venture on matrimony, would ally himselt 
with some woman of fortune, family, and fashion, she 
deported herself towards Amelia as towards the Mrs. 
Allanby of her predictions. She knew her sister-m- 
Jaw to be a near relative of an ancient Baronet of the 
county; and therefore conversed with her exclusively 
concerning London and its coteries, — the court and its 

etiquettes. , , , . , ^ 

Priscilla Carmychael, the elder of her ladyship’s two 
daughters, a discreet maiden of two and forty, assailed 
the unfortunate bride on a similar principle, although in 
a contrary direction. Old Prissy was what is termed a 
“very superior wpman;” on the strength of which de- 
signation, she had been talking unintelligibly, and ren- 
dering herself disagreeable, for thirty tedious years. 
Deeply imbued with a sense of her own eminence, 
whether of birth or understanding, she fancied she was 
remaining single in compliment to her own scrupulous 
fastidiousness; that every young man of consideration 
in the neighbourhood had secretly aspired to her hand, 
and been withheld from the presumption of a proposal 
by the dignity with which she repressed their preten- 
sions. How could it occur to the mind of a woman so 
self-enamoured, that she was as ugly and repel lant as a 
Gorgon? — or that her affected youthfulness, and facti- 
tious smiles and blushes, had long afforded a subject of 
caricature and derision to the rising generation of the 
county of Westmoreland? 

The only “superior person,” whose intellect the 
prim Priscilla regarded as at all worthy to match with 
her own, was that of her maternal uncle of Allanby 
Hall; and as unfortunately for him and her the canon 
law and every other law interposed to forbid their union, 
she entertained very little doubt,- that whenever he 
should have leisure to wed, he would select a wife on 
the very model of his intellectual niece; — some middle- 
aged lady addicted to making extracts from Locke, and 
scribbling annotations in treatises of political economy. 
That Mrs. Allanby could be an ignoramus or a pretty 
silly little girl, never entered into her calculations, and 
she accordingly attacked Amelia^ as the aunt who could, 


A DIVORCEE. 


177 ' 


should, or might have been; struck her dumb with syl- 
logisms; and walked her twice round the flower-garden 
in the course of a single sentence of many members, 
enlarging on the powers and characteristics of the hu- 
man mind. Mrs. Allanby concluding the poor old soul 
to be demented, listened with the wonderstruck air of a 
New Zealander recently caught; no longer marvelling 
that Prissy, at forty- two, was still Miss Carmychael. 

It was useless, however, to turn for consolation and 
companionship to the younger sister. Lucinda was one 
of the rigidly righteous; the correspondent of half a 
dozen controversial magazines; a speaker at missionary 
societies; an examining visiter to all the school-houses 
of the district; — in short, a modern saint, deficient only 
in the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Her faith 
consisted in a doctrinal jaVgon; her hope, in the pre- 
sumption of spiritual pride; her charity in the vain- 
gloriousness of ostentation. Christian humility and 
Christian forbearance, the mild virtue that vaunteth not 
itself, — and the active but silent fulfilment of the duties 
of domestic life, — were of course beneath the notice of 
the pattern woman. She had no leisure to read or 
write for the benefit of her purblind, purdeaf old mo- 
ther. She was herself too much of a teacher and 
preacher, to listen to the exhortations of the ministers 
of the faith appointed for her instruction. She went to 
church to cavil; and came from it with the pride of the 
Pharisee and the ignorance ot the Sadducee. On find- 
ing that Mrs. Allanby did not subscribe to a single re- 
ligious association, and had never attended a missionary 
meeting, she gave her over to perdition. A Lucinda 
Carmychael could not waste her valuable time in con- 
versation with one so deficient in the rudiments of saint- 
ly discussion. 

In short, three harder and less humanized individuals 
never wore the external attributes of womanhood. Mr. 
Allanby, indeed, loved them all,— -for they were his 
own; and even if he chanced to note their peculiarities of 
mind and manners, regarded them at worst as respect- 
able weaknesses, far less objectionable than the flighty 
levity and perilous world li ness of the fair ones, with 
whom his earlier career of London life had brought him 
in contact. Satisfied that with three female companions 


A DIVORCEE. 


178 

of so high an order of virtue and understanding, his 
young wife could have nothing to desire in the way of 
society, he betook himself quietly to his library chair, 
to renew his statistical calculations and financial esti- 
mates. He had nothing farther to look forward to but 
the birth of his child, (an event already in prospect,) 
and to hope that it might prove a son as beautiful as its 
mother, and as “superior” as the rest of its female re- 
latives. 


CHAPTER HI. 


Ab lamps burn silent with unconscious light, 

So modest ease in beauty shines most bright ; 

Unaiming charms with edge resistless fall, 

And she who means no mischief does it all. 

A An ON Hill. 


Poor Amelia, on the contrary, found much to look 
for, much to desire. It was true she had carriages, 
servants, plate, jewels, and showy apparel; but what 
were all these without the power of imparting pleasure 
and enjoying the sympathy of those she loved? — The 
Carmychaels, accustomed from their birth to similar in- 
dulgencies, were unconscious of their existence. Lux- 
ury was to them a necessary attribute of their station; 
and as to their High Mightinesses the Tuftons, and 
other stately country neighbours who were in the habit 
of formal visits to Allanby Hall, Amelia soon discovered 
how much they despised the insignificance of her air and 
insipidity of her conversation. They had not even the 
propitiating task of pitying and patronising the young 
and timid bride; for the Carmychaels boasted a pre-ex- 
istent monopoly of those gratifying offices. 

There was but one person, in short, of all the new con- 
nexions acquired on her marriage, with whom she felt 


A DIVORCED. 


179 


inclined or was encouraged to communicate freely. 
This was a very insignilicant individual — still more in- 
significant than herself; a woman who was neither 
young, handsome, rich, high-born, accomplished, nor 
brilliant; but wh6, in spite of these negations, was gifted 
to overflow'ing with the one thing needful — a mild, hu- 
mane, self-denying, all-forbearing Christian spirit: con- 
tented, though lacking the adventitious prosperities of 
life; happy, through the happiness of others; blessed, 
through virtues all her own. Such was Jane Esthope, 
the daughter of a former incumbent of the vicarage of 
Allanby; on whose decease she was admitted, by the 
liberality of the master of the Hall, to inhabit a small 
farm-house on the outskirts of the village; a woman 
passing rich, whh an income of something less than a 
hundred a-year; and pleasing in her aspect, in spite of 
a pock-fretted face and deformed person. The loveli- 
ness of benevolence shone through her large dark spa- 
niel-like eyes, and imparted a grace to her whole per- 
son. 

When first poor Jane was pointed out at Church to 
Mrs. Allanby, of Allanby, her mean stature, duffle 
cloak, and straw bonnet, said little in her favour. It 
was not likely to occur to the girlish Amelia (still daz- 
zled by the glittering prospects of ten thousand a-year) 
that much of the happiness of her future life could de- 
pend on so unimportant a person. She had not yet 
learned how soothing, how necessary, is the balm of 
sweet counsel, ev'^en to those who are clothed in purple 
and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day. She 
did not dream that the formality of Allanby Hall, and 
the awful dignity of the tliree Carmychaels, would Very 
soon induce her to slip away unattended and unnoticed; 
and hastily traversing the two fields separating Jhe 
western lodge of the Park from Alooi croft, the fairn- 
house to which, shortly after her marriage she had been 
ceremoniously introduced by her husband, seat herself 
cozily in Jane Esthope’s ingle-nooK, to talk to her,— - 
nol not talk ^ — to gossip witli her, concerning her mo- 
ther, her brothers, and sisters;— listening in her turn to 
Jane’s history of her yesterday’s churning,— of the smut 
in farmer Brown's barley, and the Sioats which liad 
wrought such devastation in Goody Denham’s poultry- 
yard. 

tVoL. 1. 


16 


180 


A DIVORCEE. 


To be sure there was something in Moorcroft which 
might have attracted visiters from even a more cheerful 
home than AllanbyHall! The farm was constructed 
within the ruins of the ancient Abbey, of Allanby, on 
the precipitous banks of the river Greta; taking, in its 
internal arrangements, the imposing form of its Gothic 
precursor. The hall, as it was termed (a chamber 
uniting both kitchen and parlour,) was formed out of 
the refectory of the monastery, — the Gothic recesses of 
which were converted into presses, the receptacles of 
Jane’s household stores, her homespun and homemade. 
The ruins of the old cloisters still formed the boundary 
of her little domain; her bantams roosted on the grim 
effigy of an early Abbot; and the herbary which ren- 
dered her honey the boast of the neighbourhood and her 
medicine chest the general resort of the poor, exiialed 
its spicy fragrance under the self-same southern wall 
which sheltered of yore the early esculents of the luxu- 
rious monks. Her grapes clustered round fancifully 
carved capitals of Saxon columns; — her China roses 
blossomed between “ a fleur-de-lys, or aquatre-feuille,” 
of hoary granite; — her bee-hives were ranged beneath the 
arch of a retiring window, once rich with a gorgeous 
variegation of deep-stained Flemish glass; — and the 
paved court, from whence her dove-cote sent up its 
flight of fantails, cardinals, and capuchins, into the clear 
blue sky, was consecrated by a tessellation of emblema- 
tic cross-bones and skulls, crowning the “hie jacets ” 
of the Franciscan brotherhood of Allanby. 

The modern tenant of tliis romantic abode, remained, 
in defiance of its associations, one of the most matter- 
of-fact persons in the world. Her world, however, was 
contained in the village of Allanby, in which she was 
born; and which she had only quitted on three occasions, 
to seek at Edinburgh the medical advice necessary to 
counteract in her youth the increase of her personal de- 
formities. Fortunately, her parents survived till Jane 
was of age to undertake the control of an independent 
household; and though, on the decease of the Vicar, a 
home had been offered her by her only sister, (who was 
married to an opulent London tradesman,) she gladly 
accepted Mr. Allanby’s offer to put the old house at 
Moorcroft in tenantable repair for her use; and settled 
herself, with an old man and woman, two infirm ser- 


A DlVORCiiE. 


im 


X^nts of her father’s house, to assume or rather pursuer 
her vocation as a second Providence to all the sick and 
sorrowful of the parish of Allanbj. 

Yet even among; the poorest of her neighbours, sne 
was only “Jane Esthope.” No one ever thought of 
disguising her by the name of Miss, or Madam: — the 
heroine , of Miss Baillie’s tragedy, “the noble Jane de 
Montfort,” was not held more proudly superior to com- 
mon forms of respect, than the little crooked, bright- 
faced being, who came smiling to her gate to welcome 
^e young wife of Allanby; and who, having seated her 
in tile wicker chair of ceremony, rejoiced in the sight of 
her beauty and the sound of lier sweet voice, without 
remembering how honoured was her lowly dwelling by 
tlie presence of the lady of the hall. Amelia had sought 
her out, encouraged by some accidental meeting on an 
errand of benevolence, at her own good pleasure.^ and 
Jane saw so much that was cheering and beautiful 
in the prospects of Moorcroft, and the superiority of her 
flowers and poultry, that she did not wonder they should 
interest the attention of the mistress of all the conserva- 
tories and aviaries of the great house. That her angel- 
guest was not happy amid those splendours was a flight 
of fancy beyond her level. Mr. Allanby reigned in 
her mind as the most exalted of human beings; and she 
would have regarded a princess deserving congratula- 
tion on becoming his wife. To be mistress of Allanby, 
— beautiful, heaven-favoured Allanby, the glory of the 
earth, and the paradise of her experience, — was, indeed, 
a destiny reserved for the favourite of fortune. 

Without sufiicient discernment of mind fo compre- 
hend the meritoriousness of Jane Esthope’s character, — 
of her cheerfulness under prolonged sickness and habi- 
tual infirmities, of the tender mercies which limited her 
personal comforts, and taxed her slender fortunes, — 
Amelia was soothed by the sight of her radiant counte- 
nance, and the influence of her cordial nature. Many 
a lesson of wisdom did she unconsciously imbibe from 
the lips of one who was herself acquainted with only two 
sources of instruction — the Book of Truth and the face 
of nature. Mrs. Allanby became wiser and better 
during a half hour’s visit to Moorcroft, than after a whole 
day’s schooling from the literary Priscilla, or the con- 
.fr^ov-ersial Lucinda. She was only aware, however, of 


182 


A DIVORCEE, 


becoming happier: for it was to Jane Esthope alone she 
ventured to prattie respecting her sister Stretton’s ap- 
prehensions that her little boj^ had got the measles, — 
Mrs. Madpc AVilliams’s anticipations of an heir-appa- 
rent that was to precede the hope of Allanby,— ^nd her 
own anxiety that some tidings should reach her parents 
concerning the safety of the Orion frigate and its second 
Lieutenant, which for two years past had been cruising 
in mysterious silence in the Indian seas. 

Lady Canny chael, mean while, regarded her sister-in- 
law as strangelyaddicted to pedestrian exercise, and hint- 
ed her tMsh that Mrs. Allanby would not take such very 
long walks in the park without “ one of .the young la- 
dies to bear her company;” till Amelia began to trem- 
ble lest she should be deprived of the comfort of unre- 
strained intercourse with her kind good Jane. But she 
had nothing to fear. Prissy bad now decided that her 
youthful aunt was a fool, and wholly unworthy her so- 
ciety and conversation^ and Lucinda was busied in 
converting an asthmatic tailor, who lived at a village 
three miles off, the sliining light of a virulent sect of 
ranters. Every morning she drove over in her pony 
cart, laden with decoction of squills and "works of con- 
troversial divinity, for the cure of his spiritual and 
physical ailments, and was seldom to be seen at the 
Hall. 

It was on^ bright day in April, after an absence of 
four or five, (a long absence for one who was in the 
habit of at least a five minutes’ parley over the gate 
every morning of the week,) that Amelia passed th^^ 
threshold of Moorcroft; and without interrupting Jan^ 
Esthope’s occupation, who w^as busy sorting flax for 
distribution among the poor, seated herself beside an 
open casement round which the gay flowers of the me- 
zereon and corcorus were already clustering. 

“ I have not been here since Thursday,” said she in 
a mournful tone. “We have had 'a terrible large party 
at the Hall.” i 

“I met a carriage and four with .the Tufton arms 
the other day, as I was returning from the West Lodge 
poor-houses,” observed Jane, who had never in her ift'e 
entered the Hall as a guest, and had no more notion 
of being invited there than of a presentation at Court. 

“ Lady Sophia Pufton and her family w'ere with us 


A DlVORCfiE. 


IStJ 

'three days; and we had my father’s cousin, Sir Vava- 
'Sor Kendal and his son, besides several other people.” 

“ A large pleasant party? ” 

“Yes! Lady Carmychael thought it very pleasant. 
1 heard her tell Mr. Allanby it went off ‘ vastly well, 
considering;’ but I don’t know,-— it seemed very stiff 
and unsociable after our Bath parties.” 

“ Bath must be a very gay place,” said Jane; they 
tell me it is almost as large as Edinburgh.” 

“It is a very beautiful city; and yet when I hap- 
pened to mention to one of the Miss Tuftons that I had 
never been in London, and had lived at Bath, she 
seemed so surprised; and said to her sister, ‘I did not 
know people lived at Bath; I fancied one only went for 
the season.’ And the next lime I was aJone with Lady 
Carmychael she begged me as a particular favour never 
again to mention that I was brought up at such a places 
or that I never lived in town.— ‘ People will find it 
out quite soon enough,^ she said; ‘ and it would vex 
my brother to know that the Tuftons had been sneer- 
ing at his wife.” 

“But did they sneer?” 

“They looked at each other, but said no^t a word.*’ 

“ Sir Vavasor Kendal must have been aware that 
you are not a Londoner.” 

“ He knows very little of us; and yet, but for his in- 
troduction of Mr. Allanby, I should never have seen 
Westmoreland,” said Mrs. Allanby with a deep sigh. 

“ You must love him for that!” cried Jane, glowing 
Avith the minor patriotism of love of county. — 

“ He seems very amiable and gracious.” 

“And were his sons with him? — Colonel Kendal is 
one of our members, , and is thought a very great man.” 

“So he seemed. He sat whispering every evening 
with the Miss Tuftons and Lady Sophia, till I almost 
fancied they were laughing at me.” 

“Dear, dear Mrs. Allanby^ — laughing at jyow/ How 
could you fancy such a thing?” said Jane^ aghast at 
the notion. 

“ Indeed it was only my cousin Vavasor who conde- 
scended to take the least notice of me. I remember he 
came once to Batli, and used to dance with my sister 
Jlose, when I was a little girl. And he asked me so 
smanj questions about home; and remembered all nyr 


184 


A DIVORCEE. 


brothers. I like Vavasor very much. I walked witli 
him every morning,* I almost thought of bringing him 
to visit you.” 

*^‘1 should have been very glad to see him.” 

“But I sometimes think, that if Lady Carmychael 
and her daughters knew of my coming here so often, 
and how happy I am atMoorcroft, they would want to 
come too; and they are so very disagreeable!” 

“ Surely, they will soon be leaving the Hall?” 

“Yes; I heard Miss Lucinda tell the Tuftons they 
should meet in town after Easter; and Vavasor seemecl 
surprised when he found we were not going too. My 
cousin assures me I should be enchanted with London. 
But I am satisfied I should feel still more lonely there 
than at Allanby; for I know nobody in town but my 
brother Bob, whose time is taken, up with business; 
and here I have you, Jane, — whom, next to mamma and 
my sisters, I love better than any body.” 

“ You are very good to say so,” said Jane Esthope, 
warmly; “but in London you would soon gain plenty 
of fine friends.” 

Amelia sighed: — those she had acquired since her 
marriage gave her little anxiety to increase the num- 
ber. “I w\ant no new friends,” said she. “Perhaps 
next y^ar some of my brothers and sisters may be in- 
vited to Allanby, and it will not be so dull then; — I 
shall have my baby to show them. How delightful it 
will be to bring them all here some morning! Helen 
draws beautifully, and will make me a sketch of Moor- 
croft. Poor Helen lost her little girl: — I shall be quite 
grieved for her, Jane, when she first sees mine.” 

“ But is yours to be a little girl.f>— TFe in the village 
want an heir for Allanby Hall.” 

“Oh! no, no,— a dear little girl, who will ahvays be 
with me— never leave me. I. shall wish for no compa- 
ny then. Dear, dear Jane, think how happy I shall be 
when ” 

“ When you find that I have at last discovered your 
retreat!” cried a voice from the window'. “ Pardon me 
for venturing hither; but those two ferocious dranons 
the Miss Carmychaels, informed me you were wander- 
ing somewheie about the park, and I gave my horse 
leave to follow you.” 

He was veiy clever to find his way to Moorcroft,” 


/ 


A DIVORCEE. 


185 


'said Mrs. Allanby, blushing. deeply as the face and 
figure of a very fine young man of five and twenty ap- 
peared at the casement; I hope you have tied him "at 
the gate, so that he may not trample the flower-beds. 
Jane, this is, my cousin Vavasor.” 

“Pray walk in, Mr. Kendal,” said Jane Esthope, 
smoothing her apron, and laying aside her flax to make 
way for the brother of the county member. “ You ane 
rheartily welcome to Mooi'croft.” 


^ - • CHAPTER IV. 

Millions of false eyes 
Are stuck upon thee! Volumes of reports 
Run with their false and most contrarious quests 
Upon thy doings. 

Shakspeare, 

“That was a devilish pretty woman who kissed her 
forefinger to you ’So graciously just novv!” said Lord 
Seafield to Colonel Kendal, as they were riding together 
in Hyde Park, exactly five years after the foregoing 
conversiition. “ Anna^zingly graceful figure .on horse- 
back — best seat I ever saw, — beats Mrs. Wilmot ar.d 
the Marchioness hollow.” 

“’Tis the wife of my brother member old Allanby, 
and a sort of relation of my own.” 

“Old Allanby.^ — Ay — ay — I remember he married 
some pretty school -girl just before I went to the Medi- 
terranean; but one heard nothing of her then?” 

“No; — he kept her caged in Westmoreland for a 
year or two; — and a more moping little linnet you never 
beheld. But the Tuftons, finding at that rate she. 
would be no possible acquisition to them — (Tufton Cas- 
tle, you know, js scarcely half a dozen miles from AI- 
.lanby) — good-naturedly took her into training; amd soon 
jmanaged to teach her the use of ten thousand a-year 


A DIVORCEIE. 


166 

and a pair of the bluest eyes that ever rivalled a Nea- 
politan sky.” 

“And what said old Allanby to the fruits of the 
lesson? — ” 

“Faith! not much. He is too profound a thinker to 
be a great talker, and is now so afflicted with the gout 
that he has not leisure for the exercise «f much authori- 
ty. A year or two ago, when Lady Carmychael died, 
1 fancy my brother Vavasor flattered himself the old 
senator had some thoughts of becoming her compagnon 
de voyage over the Styx.” 

“Your brother flattered himself! — Why, what has he 
to do with the business?” 

“Nothing, except being madly in love with the lady 
yonder on the gray mare.” 

“Indeed! nothing else?” 

“No: her family .take great care of her. That young 
Kendal of the Blues is a brother of hers; old Allanby 
got him his commission.” ^ 

“And Captain Kendal of the Salsette, whom I met 
at Cerigo? ” 

“An elder brother; — all country cousins of ours. 
One of her sisters is married to Colonel Stretton, who 
is going out with a good appointment on Lord Comber- 
mere’s Staff*^ and another is the wife of Archdeacon 
Langston. They are a sad slow set; and were it not 
for pretty little Mrs. Allanby I should never recognise 
their existence.” 

“ I w'onder Allanby allows her to amuse herself so 
well. See! — she has got Sir Michael Crosbie, and 
Connaught, and Lochvardine, and all the roues in her 
train.” 

“ She does what she likes with the old man. He is 
80 taken up with the education of his two boys, (two 
fine creatures, who, in spite of their beauty are the 
image of himself,) that he interferes but little in her pro- 
ceedings. She is quite adored in Westmoreland. My 
sister Lady Emlyn, and the Tuftons, have put her on 
the popularity scent; and by dint of a few balls, pub- 
lic days, private races, and all that sort of things, they 
contrived to get Allanby solicited to stand again for the 
county.” 

“An application which few men resist. They for- 
get -that it is almost as easy to pack a county as a 
3ury.” 


A DIVORCEE. 


187 


^‘The election cost him a few acres of his old oaks, 
notwithstanding. But it secured the main point, a 
house-in-to\vn for Mrs. Allanby: which being in Berke- 
ley Square and endowed with a tolerably good cook, 
we all find it amazingly convenient. She has too many 
brothers about her at present; but Lady Emlyn''has 
cured her of half ber provincialisms, and in time may 
do away with that.” 

“LadyEmlyn is an exjterienced preceptress,” siyd 
Lord Seafield with a smile of a peculiar kind; “quite 
an adept in the arts and sciences of May Fair.” 

‘‘Ay, ay!” cried the fashionable brother, “l am de- 
lighted to see her exercise her genius for tuition on 
other men’s wives; but I shall take care to prevent her 
teaching treason to mine.” 

“Yours! — Have you any thoughts qf the noose?” 

“ You will see it fairly knotted before the end of the 
season, and in a cable of gold. After all, my dear Sea- 
field, I am compelled to part with myself to Miss Cres- 
set, the Clapham heiress. She and her father are both 
most afHictingly in love with me ; — he vvith my radical 
speeches in the House, she with my occasional stanzas 
in the annuals ; — he fancies me a rampant democrat,— *• 
she believes me to be a ‘feeling, stealing, — banish, va- 
nish, — cherish, perish,’ — sort of mule-bird, between 
Byron and Moore.” 

“ What has she down? ” 

“ A hundred thousand to a commoner, and twice as 
much to a peer.” 

“So much for the Clapham democrat! — You had bet- 
ter turn her over to me, ‘exchanging and receiving the 
difference;* which arrangement would clear accounts 
for both of us; and / could shut her up in my old tum- 
ble-down castle on Lough Swilly, whereas you will 
never get rid of her farther than Westmoreland.” 

“Thank you!” cried Kendal, laughing heartily; 

“ but I have ulterior views. I shall drink old Cresset 
to death w'ith Maraschino punch in the course of a year 
or two, — and then ” 

“Well, well! if you happen to have a settlement- 
squabble with your heiress, 


“ In the sweet pangs of it remember 


188 


A DIVORCEE. 

If they exact a longer rent-roll than you can produce, 7 
have one which would snip into measures for the regi- 
mentals of Napoleon’s army; and if it should help to 
buy me an heiress, why, upon my soul! ’tis the first 
time I ever derived a shilling’s worth of advantage from 
it. But here is Lady Emlyn.” 

“ Kendal! do I meet you at the Tuftons’ to-nightr” 
inquired a very handsome, showy woman, riding to- 
wards her brother. 

“ What are we to have ? — Tableaux and 'petits 
jeuxP^^ 

“No! a ball; their cards have been out this month 
past.” 

“Then I am particularly engaged. I never bore 
myself with those general congregations; nothing ever 
proves worth going to but an impromptu. Seafield, — 
you are a ball man, — will you take my place?” 

“Thank you, I am going in my own; and shall cer- 
tainly appeal to Lady Emlyn’s good-nature to present 
me to Mrs. Allanby.” 

“Mrs. Allanby!” cried her ladyship, with an invo- 
luntary elevation of the eyebrow, “ you must ask my 
brother Vavasor’s leave, not mine. My fair cousin has 
long been out of leading strings; and is not only 
able to go alone, but runs faster than most people.” 

“Well, well! / will meet you at the Tuftons, if Le- 
titia (my golden goddess) should release me for the 
evening,” said Colonel Kendal, riding off with his sis- 
ter, who had turned her horse’s head in a contrary di- 
rection. I want to hear one unbiassed opinion of 
Mrs. Allanby.” 

It must be owned that five years form an awful lapse 
in human life: — a lapse whose hours and minutes leave 
no where a trace more sharp and injurious than on the 
minds and countenances of individuals involved in the 
buzzing, stinging gnatswarms of fashionable life. — 
Elsewhere, existence marches with a more dignified 
step, and th^ scenes pictured among the records of our 
memory assume a grander aspect; they lie in masses, — 
their shadows are broader, — their lights more brilliant- 
ly thrown out. But reminiscences of a life of ton are 
as vexatious as they are frivolous. The season of 1829 
differs from that ot 1830, only, inasmuch, as its quad- 


A DIVORCEE. 


189 


rilles are varied with galoppes as well as w'altzes, and 
danced at Lady A’s. and Lady B’s., — instead of the 
Duchess of D’s., and Countess E’s. The Duchess is 
dead, — the Countess ruined 5 — but no matter! — there 
are still plenty of balls to be had. “ Another and ano- 
ther still succeeds!” Since young ladies loill grow up 
to be presented, lady-mothers and aunts must continue 
to project breakfasts, water parties, and galas, whereby 
to throw them in the way of flirtation, courtship, and 
marriage. Mischief, in her most smiling mask, sits 
like the beautiful witch in Thalaba at an everlasting 
spinning-wheel, weaving a mingled yarn of sin and sor- 
row for the daughters of Fashion. Although the cal- 
dron of Hecate and her priestesses has vanished from 
the heath at Forres, it bubbles in nightly incantations 
among the elm trees of Grosvenor Square^ and Hopper 
and Hellway, Puckle and .Stradling, now croak forth 
their chorus of rejoicing where golden lamps swing 
blazing over the ecarte tables, and the soft strains of 
the Mazurka enervate the atmosphere of the gorgeous 
temples of May Fair. 

Never yet was there a woman really improved in at- 
traction by mingling with the motley throng of the heau 
monde. She may learn to dress better, to step more 
gracefully; her head may assume a more elegant turn, 
her conversation become more polished, her air more 
distinguished; — but in point of attraction she acquires 
nothing. Her simplicity of mind departs; — her gene- 
rous, confiding impulses of character are lost; — she is 
no longer inclined to interpret favourably of men or 
things, — she listens without believing, — sees without 
admiring; has suffered perseclition without learning 
mercy; — and been taught to mistrust the candour of 
others by the forfeiture of her own. The freshness of 
her disposition has vanished with the freshness of her 
complexion; hard lines are perceptible in her very soul, 
and crowsfeet contract her very fancy. No longer 
pure and fair as the statue of alabaster, her beauty, like 
that of some painted waxen effigy, is tawdry and me- 
retricious. It is not alone the rouge upon the cheek 
and the false tresses adorning the forehead, which repel 
the ardour of admiration; it is the artificiality ot mind 
with which such efforts are connected, that breaks the 
spell of beauty. 


190 


A DIVORCEE. 

Amelia, wandering in her girlish niatronhood among 
the groves of Allanby Park, spotless as Una and con- 
fiding as Miranda, was, perhaps, as lovely and graceful 
a being as ever smiled upon the earth. Amelia, in her 
diamond tiara and satin robe, arrayed in the most fas- 
tidious refinement of Parisian fashion, smiling aftected- 
ly as she seemed to lend an absent ear to the flatteries 
of Lord Connaught at the entrance of Lady Sophia 
Tufton’s ball-room, was, perhaps, the most striking 
person of all that patrician assemblage. But she was 
not now the beauty whose faintest whisper could make 
the heart beat, — whose downcast eyes had eloquence 
to stir every feeling within her lover’s heart. She was 
-in fact “the fashionable Mrs. Allanby,” she was no 
longer “ Amelia.” 

Yet no one had a right to complain of the results and 
consequences of her marriage. It had fulfilled every 
expected, every predicted purpose. Her father w’as 
not only in the habit of making a long, annual, autumnal 
visit at Allanby Hall, but had been welcomed, solely 
in conse([uence of this' new alliance, to the home of his 
forefathers, — the seat of Sir Vavasor Kendal^ and he 
knew that it was the interest of the honourable member 
for Westmoreland which had given a step to his naval 
and military sons, an arch-deaconry to his son-in-law. 
Langston, a lucrative appointment in India to his son- 
in-law Stretton, and a commission in the Blues to Ame- 
lia’s favourite brother — the handsome Frederick. Poor 
Mrs. Kendal (still anchored at Bath by the selfishness 
of the ci-devant elegant young man) was satisfied by 
the frequency and magnificence of Mrs. Allanby’s gifts, 
— the India shawls, velvet dresses, and silk cloaks, 
supplied by her pin-money to her still beloved mother, 
^that she must be the darling of prosperity, and con - 
sequently the happiest of women; and her sisters, al- 
though during their formal visit to Westmoreland they - 
could not help secretly pitying poor Amelia’s incapa^ 
bility of romanticizing about Mr. Allanby, as they did 
about their “dear Stretton,” or “ charming Madoc,” 
or “ precious Langston,” were at least compelled to 
admit, that her two fine boys were the paragons of 
the family, that her husband was all indulgence, and 
her life all sunshine. 

Even Mr. Allanby had no reason to complain. Ho 


.A DIVORCEE. 


m 


^ad ardently desired an heir to his ancient hereditary 
estates; and he had now two noble sons with the name of 
Allanby written on their faces, — the whole family pic- 
ture-gallery united in their features! Lady Carmy- 
chael had ventured to express her regrets, during the 
early days of his marriage, that Mrs. Allanby was not 
more a woman of the world; and Mrs. Allanby was 
now the pride of the printshops, — the quoted of the 
milliners, — the glory of Almacks! His niece Priscilla 
had been disappointed by the want of intellectuality of 
her new aunt; and Mrs. Allanby was now the star of 
the coteries, — a leading blue among the wire-wove Sap- 
phos of May Fair- Lucinda had bewailed her lack of 
zeal; and Mrs. Allanby was now a weekly weeper at 
the Lock, and an ostensible subscriber to every Cal- 
thorpian catalogue in London. She was adored by her 
husband’s tenants, worshipped in the county; could have 
suppressed an election mob sooner than the riot act, 
and put down a strike among the manufacturers of the 
district, far more easily than a squadron of dragoons. 
The beautiful Mrs. Allanby, of Allanby^ was, in short, 
every thing a county member could desire in his wife. 

Yet if the truth must be told, no one was completely 
satisfied with Amelia or her match. Her father, who 
for the two years succeeding her marriage, loved her far 
the best of his children, had now transferred his affection 
to the Madoc Williams, on whose grand paternal estate 
a copper-mine had been recently discovered, whose 
cook was fifty pounds a year better than Mr. Allanby’s, 
and whose cellar he had received the -satisfactory com- 
mission to stock at his own will and pleasure; — Mrs. 
Kendal was hurt that Amelia, who seemed fully pos- 
sessed of the power to come or go, had never visited 
Bath to exhibit her sons and her diamonds;— her sisters 
had discovered, that since her extreme intimacy with the 
Tuftons, Lady Emlyn,and half a dozen Duchesses, she 
was remiss in her correspondence, and less warm in 
her welcome to themselves; — and her brothers, (most 
of whom were largely indebted to the kindness and libe- 
rality of Mr. Allanby,) felt uneasy at the publicity of 
her life, and the indifference it served to reveal towards 
his habits and convenience. The soldier, and the sai- 
lor, the major and thg captain, being wanderers by vo- 
cation, saw little of their fashionable sister, and Henry 
tVoL. I. 17 


192 


A DIVORCEE. 


>vas still at Bombay; but Robert, the junior partner of 
a Lombard Street house, — Vavasor, who was reading 
for his degree at Cambridge with the promise of one of 
Mr. Allanby’s best livings, — and above all, Frederick, 
the gay, gallant, handsome Fred, whom the old gentle- 
man loved almost as a son, and had put forward in the 
world with fatherly liberality, — were often tempted to 
remonstrate with their lovely sister on her neglect of 
her husband’s domestic comforts, on her excessive dis- 
sipation and perilous intimacy with their cousin Lady 
Emlyn. 

“ What can you know of such things?” was Amelia’s 
reply to the banker and the collegian. “ You, my dear 
Bob, wisely limit your acquaintance with society to the 
rational latitudes of Bedford Square; and you. Vavasor, 
to the tea-parties of your hideous professors’ wives, in 
their swansdown tippets and towy wigs. Pray let Lady 
Emlyn alone; she is a constellation of which you can- 
not measure the altitude.” 

“ But I,” exclaimed Frederick with spirit, “ I, Ame- 
lia, who frequent the same society as yourself, and who 
hear and see all i/ow hear and see, as well as a thousand 
things of which. Heaven be praised, you are ignorant,—/ 
can assure you that Lady Emlyn is spoken of in a tone 
which, were she my sister, would drive me to distrac- 
tion. You do not half know her, or you could not de- 
fend her cause.” 

“It is because I thoroughly understand her that I 
despise these paltry scandals. There is a new system 
of quackery, you must remember, which kills all half 
believers; but those who persevere are safe. If you 
would be at the trouble of cultivating Harriet’s friend- 
ship, you would feel as 1 do that what the world calls 
levity is in fact mere innocence of heart.” 

“ Innocence ! — The playfulness of an adder sporting 
in the sunshine!” 

“ Or like Madame de Brinvillier’s poisoned nose^^ay, 
whose fragrance was death.” ^ 

“ My old friend Beverley (Charles Beverley, Amelia, 
who was once so much attached to you,) assures me 
that Lady Emlyn is ” 

“Come, come, cornel” cried Mrs. Allanby, “I re- 
ally will not have you so malicious. Harriet is my 
kindest and best friend. Had she not taken the trouble 


A DIVORCE K. 


193 


to put me au fait to our county politics and rub off a 
little of my provincial rust, I should have still remained 
the clod I vvas when I first went down to Allanbyj— 
terrified like a school-girl at the Carmychaels and their 
crew,— -and reverencing poor Allanby with as much 
awe as if he had been an archbishop!” 

“ I know not that you are the happier for having 
learned to pay him less respect. The obligations of the 
family ” 

“ Nonsense!— Do you imagine Mr. Allanby selected 
me as a wife to oblige my family? The match suited 
him, and the obligation is mutual. Vavasor Kendal 
was quite angry the other day, Fred, to hear you talk- 
ing publicly at mess of your gratitude to Mr. Allanby. 
He said he certainly w’ould not have dined there, had he 
known you were going to make your family ridiculous 
by assuming the tone of a linen-draper thanking my 
lord or the squire for his gracious patronage.” 

“Vavasor Kendal will never expose his family by 
the sin of gratitude,” cried Robert with indignation. 

“Vavasor is a reprobate!” exclaimed his clerical 
cousin and namesake, “ The similarity of names be- 
tween us, has introduced me into more of his secrets 
than he would care to hear of.” 

“Indeed!” said Mrs. Allanby, blushing deeply. 
“Are you silly enough to fancy he wishes to pass fora 
saint?” 

“ There is one person,” observed Fredrick, sternly, 
“ with whom he shall very shortly pass in his true cha- 
racter, if I see any cause to renew my disapprobation. 
Rely on it, Amelia, Mr. Allanby shall hear every syl- 
lable which reaches my ears respecting him, unless I 
find you moderate your intimacy with Vavasor and Lady 
Emlyn. They are assisting to injure your reputation 
far beyond your powers, of belief or redemption.” 

“ I must beg, in the mean time,” said Mrs. Allanby, 
“ that you will intrude no advice upon me, which I 
neither seek nor require. For the future, I shall wel- 
come none of my family or friends whom I see disposed 
to breed dissension in a house where they have been 
so hospitably received.” 

“Neither harsh words, nor harsh looks, my dear sis- 
ter,” replied Frederick, “ will deter us from watching 
over your honour and happiness. We must take care 
that Caesar’s wife is not suspected.” 


194 


• A divorcee- 


chapter V. 


She enlareeth her mirth so far that there is shrewd construction made of 
jjgj, “ Merry Wives of Windsor. 

It was precisely the day preceding Lady Sophia TuL 
ton’s ball, that this harassing conversation took place; 
and though Amelia treated the subject of her brothers’ 
reprehensions with such lofty disdain, and boasted her- 
self independent of their interference, she could not 
shake off certain feelings of alarm and irritation on the 
subject. She attired herself for the fete so eagerly 
anticipated by Lord Seafield, with a determination to 
speak seriously to her cousin Vavasor respecting the 
injurious suspicions arising from their intimacy. 

But it was not always possible to talk seriously to 
Vavasor Kendal. He was one of those persons who 
seem to fancy life itself a jest, and its most peremptory 
business liable to be thrust aside by the levity of those 
who boldly defy the cares of life. He was a bad son; 
— but by taking care to amuse his father with the live- 
liness of his sallies, whenever they did happen to meet, 
impressed a notion on the mind of Sir Vavasor, that he 
,was no worse than other fashionable young men of the 
day. He was a bad officer; — but by rendering himself 
extremely agreeable at mess, and rallying his brother 
officers into the performance of his neglected duties, he 
contrived to escape without much reprehension. He 
was deeply in debt, — yet by laughing loudly and jest- 
ing boldly on the subject, he contrived to make both 
himself and his creditors imagine that his engagements 
were on the point of liquidation. He was a bad cousin, 
— a bad designing cousin, — to the pretty Mrs. Allan- 
by; but while he bantered her so freely on the rumours 
concerning his attachment and his projects, Amelia 
neither doubted nor feared his intentions. Upon all 
occasions, when she sought to impress on his mind the 
ill-natured inferences drawn by the fashionable world 
from their extreme intimacy, lie appeared too much 
amused to be angry. 

“The blockheads!’’ he exclaimed, when she ear- 
nestly requested him to avoid those familiarities hy 


A DIVORCEE, 


195 


which he exposed her conduct to injurious interpreta- 
tion. “Surely, dearest Amelia, surely you do not 
wish to renounce the society of your poor cousin, to 
gratify the ill-nature of a set of peevish old dowagers 
and superannuated coquettes, who cannot bear to see 
other people happier than themselves? What harm is 
there, what harm can there be, in my taking care of 
you in your daily rides, now that Mr. Allanby is too 
infirm to be your protector?” 

“There are my brothers—” 

“You have only two in town: — Bob the square-toes, 
— who is always busy with his horrible shop.” 

“ — And Fred. — who is as idle as yourself.” 

“Frederick has no horses.” ' 

“ He has the use of Mr. Allanby’s.” 

“His person is at present very little known about 
town, — no one is aware of his being your brother, — ' 
and a scandal would be raised on the subject, ten 
thousand times more mischievous than any they would 
dare affix on a man like myself, as well known as the 
pave of St. James’s Street.” 

“A scandal which could only rise to fall. In short, 
Vavasor, for the sake of my qwn happiness and Mr. 
Allanby’s comfort, let me entreat you to be more guard- 
ed in your conduct.” 

“By heaven! I do believe,” cried Vavasor, “that 
Lochvardine or Crosbie have been putting all these fa- 
riboles into your head; — and if I had any grounds 

“ Hush, hush!” said Amelia, apprehensive of the re- 
marks his vehemence might excite, “every one is look- 
ing at you.” 

“Let them look, — let them listen! I have nothing 
to say which the whole world may not hear.” 

“ But have you no regard for your cousin?” 

“ My cousin has no regard except for two insolent 
coxcombs, whose homage she prizes beyond that of a 
man only too truly, too unfortunately devoted to her.” 

“Oh! no — no!” faltered Amelia. “You are well 
aware. Vavasor, that your affection is indispensable to 
my happiness; — that my whole soul is centred in your 
friendship.” 

Vavasor Kendal was about to press her arm to his 
side in token of gratitude; but he checked himself. His 
affected indignation had sufficed to force from her lips 


196 


A DIVORCEE. 


the avowal he desireclj and it was therefore his policy 
to re-assume his usual ironical tone. 

“Well! — do not let us be too heroical, where heroism 
is so little requisite as in a common place cousinly at- 
tachment. Nothing is indispensable to my happiness 
just now but a waltz to whirl away the disagreeable im- 
pressions your homily has excited. Come, Amelia, 
come! Give me your arm. There — the waltz is over — 
how very provoking you are! — ’’ 

These last familiar words w^ere overheard by Lord 
Seatield, who stood near them, w'aiting for the termina- 
tion of a colloquy, apparently so interesting to the two 
cousins, that he might request a presentation to Mrs. 
Allanby, w'hose personal attractions far surpassed his 
expectations. But he now desisted. A degree of in- 
timacy so unrestricted as to admit of chiding, warranted 
in his opinion all the insinuations of Colonel Kendal, 
and the sneers of Lady Emlyn; and he w'as more inclined 
to forgive the daring effrontery of that fashionable flirt, 
than the hypocritical meekness of one who concealed 
her sins under a mask of such feminine gentleness, such 
youthful naivete, as Mrs. Allanby. The most dissi- 
pated men, in such cases, become the most rigorous 
judges. 

Nor did he discern any cause for amending his ver- 
dict, after watching the conduct of the parlies from 
fete to fete, from breakfast to breakfast, from opera to 
water party, from water party to those more inferential 
petits comites^ where flirtations are so well heard, seen, 
and understood, and where wliat is neither heard nor 
seen is understood still better. Lord Seafield observed, 
and had no particular inducement to keep his observa- 
tions to himself, that on Captain Kendal’s entrance into 
a party graced by the presence of his be^mtiful cousin, 
Mrs. Allanby’s rising colour betrayed her instantaneous 
cognizance of an arrival which others noted without in- 
terest or sympathy. He saw her shun the companion- 
ship of the most entertaining men and agreeable women 
in town, simply for the pleasure of sitting in silence be- 
side Vavasor,— content with the gratification of seeing 
him amused by what w'as going on around them;— avoid 

all diversions in which he could not participate; court 

the society of those only who w^ere favoured with his 
preference; — neglect her husband, her children, herself, 
te minister to the vanity of a heartless libertine! On 


A DIVORCEE. 


197 


such premises it was natural to ground an opinion that 
Vavasor must aspire to become lord of her destinies;-— 
that he was either openly or secretly, 

son maitre, 

Qui I’est, le fut, ou le doit etre! 

More than once he renewed his conversation on the sub- 
ject with Colonel Kendal, in order to express his con- 
tempt for “poor old Allanby’s blindness.” 

“Say not a word on that head, I beseech you,” 
cried the brother Knight of the Shire of the deluded 
husband. “ That hot-headed boy-cousin of ours in the 
Blues, wishes for nothing better than to have an excuse 
for shooting Vav. through the head, to punisli him for 
the unkinsmanly deed of showing up his rawness on his 
first arrival in town. Not another word, I beseech you. 
It might nip the afiair in the bud.” 

“No, no! at w'orst it could only shake the leaves 
from an overblown flower.” ^ 

“You are mistaken; Vavasor is much too knowing a 
.sportsman to ride over his own pack. It would suit 
him far better to make a wife of Allanby’s widow, than 
a mistress of Allanby’s wife. Don’t for a moment sup- 
pose that an experienced man like my brother is likely 
to become the dupe of his own feelings.” 

“ I do him justice; I am persuaded he has none to be 
made the dupe of. But that lovely woman /ms, or I am 
very much mistaken; and I am sorry to see her so blind 
'a victim.” 

“Pray reserve your sympathy for Mrs. Kendal. I 
should be jealous if you pitied any one more than my 
own little future wife; for I have a presentiment that, 
as a married man, 1 shall prove the greatest brute in the 
family.” 

Et a quemd la note? ” 

“Not till the autumn. Old Cresset chooses Letitia 
to be of age before she is made miserable for life; and 
I have a Blenheim or two to break in for pheasant-shoot- 
ing, which will bring my liand in famously. I mean to 
make the heiress a retriever in every^ sense.” 

“Make her Mrs. Kendal in the first instance,” said 
Lord Seafield sneeringly. 

♦‘There’s many a slip 
’Twixt cup and lip,” 


198 


A DIVORCEE. 


you know: even though the cup be of virgin gold, and 
the lip as greedy as your own.” 

Lady Emlyn’s opinions, if more guardedly expressed, 
were not less implicatory. Judging her sex in general 
from her own detestable experience, she entertained no 
doubt of Amelia’s consummate hypocrisy. The w^retch- 
edness occasionally visible in the beautiful face of the 
worshipped Mrs. Allanby, arising from the struggles of 
a feeble and ill- regulated mind writhing in the grasp of 
the tempter, were imputed by her cousin’s interpreta- 
tion to the reproaches of a peevish conscience. She 
hated Amelia for the want of confidence in herself 
which induced her to disguise the fact; and despised her 
for the want of firmness characterizing at once her fault 
and her repentance. 

One morning she had been listening with an incredu- 
lous smile to Lord Seafield’s observations on Mrs. Al- 
lanby’s fading beauty and dispirited air, while their 
barge floated in luxurious indolence along that beautiful 
river, which, in the month of June, is charged with the 
burden of as many fashionable w'ater-parties as of New- 
castle colliers. “Well, well,” she cried at last, as he 
assisted her to land on the lawn of tlie beautiful villa 
appropriated to the pleasures of the day, “she will soon 
have leisure to recover her lost looks and domestic ha- 
bits. She is going down to Allanby in a day or two, to 
play the turtle-dove among the groves of Westmore- 
land. You might have guessed as much from Lochvar- 
dine’s desponding looks.” 

Lord Seafield guessed no such thing; but this brief 
explanation served at least to solve the mystery of a 
conversation, which, towards the evening of that event- 
ful day, he chanced to overhear among the shrubberies 
which twilight already rendered indistinct. 

“ But surely you will come and see us on your way to 
the moors?” inquired a faltering voice, of which the soft 
tones were now familiar to his ear. 

“Not unless you promise me that I shall not be bro- 
ther-pecked, as 1 have lately been. On my soul, Amelia ! 
I will never enter the Hall again, unless you undertake 
that Frederick shall not be invited during my visit.” 

“Allanby has given him a right to come and go as 
he pleases.” ® 

“But if you please, you know' you can make him 
stay aw^ay.” 


A DIVORCEE. 




“You are well aware that at your instigation I have 
already grievously offended both him and Robert^ and 
Vavasor is continually writing me letters of remon- 
strance.” 

“ Officious blockheads! — What would they say were 
I to interfere in their affairs ?” 

“ They would have a right to be displeasedj but they 
have also a right to act in mine.” 

“ Not when connected with those of Vavasor Kendal, 
as you will all find to your cost.” 

“Why should you include me in your menaces?” 
said the voice, in a tremulous tone. “Surely I have 
not offended you ?” 

“You listen to every meddling fool who tries to alien- 
ate you from me.” 

“I listen to nothing but my own heart,” said the 
voice still more faintly; “which proves, alas! but a 
weak admonitor!” 

“ And if I do look in upon you on my road to Loch- 
vardine’s,” said the savage lover, somewhat appeased, 
“do you intend to trifle with my aff'ections as you 
have done in London? — to put forward the claims of a 
doting old abecedarian, who cares more for little Dig- 
by^s syntax, or Charles’s wonderful progress in his 
pothooks and hangers, than for the tenderness of their 
mother?” 

“If you intend to speak of my husband in terms like 
these,” said Amelia with spirit, “ do not come. I com- 
mit a sufficient outrage against him and my children by 
listening to your protestations, without adding insult to 
injury.’’ 

The tempter was startled by this sudden reassump- 
tion of self-respect. “ At least,” said he, more mildly, 
“you do not intend to surround yourself by those fe- 
rocious women the Carmychaels?” 

“I fancy the family will pass some months at AN 
lanby. They are extremely foiid of the boys, and take 
infinite pains with them.” 

“The boys! — Amelia — Amelia, — you will teach me 
to abhor those children, if they are to interfere with 
all my hopes, with all my happiness.” 

“Iwill talk to you no more to-night,” cried Mrs. 
Allanby with indignation. “ You are as unkind as you 
are unreasonable.” , . . u 

“ Forgive me!” cried her companion, detaining her. 


200 


A DIVORCEE. 


^‘Forgive me, dearest! How can I be otherwise than 
wayward and irritable when we are about to part? 
Promise me that, when I visit Westmoreland you will 
welcorfie me more kindly than I deserve, — promise me 
that you will meet and converse with me as unrestrain- 
edly as now, — and I will be resigned and tranquil.” 

“Impossible!” cried Amelia, resuming her former 
manner. “ In a small family circle our mutual under- 
standing would be detected in a moment. Mr. Allan- 
by’s attention will be then less occupied, and the Car- 
mychaels are as harsh as they are shrewd in their con- 
structions.” 

“But surely, dearest, surely you can devise means 
for our meeting, unwatched by their detestable inquisi- 
tion?” 

“No! — ” said Mrs. Allanby more firmly. “In- 
deed, I cannot.” 

“That dear good silly soul Jane Esthope! Yes, 
Amelia, yesj — we may, at least find our way to Moor- 
croft. The Carmychaels are far too high and mighty 
to molest us with their company at the farm.” 

“ I havd a great respect for Jane,” said Amelia, 
gravely, — almost sternly; “and will never consent to 
deceive her into sanctioning our clandestine meetings.” 

“ You evince your consideration for every human 
being but myself!” cried Vavasor, angrily, and only too 
well aware of the extent of his influence over her mind; 
“ but what can one expect from the steadiness of a fine 
lady’s attachment? — What had I ever to hope from the 
professions of the fashionable Mrs. Allanby? Dearest 
Amelia! — you are in tears! Forgive — forgive the petu- 
lence of the madman who adores you!” 


CHAPTER VI. 


L’honneur est comme nne ile escarp6eet sans bords. 

On n’y pent plus r’entrer, des qu’on en est dehors. 

Boileau. 


Lord Seafielcl’s predictions were more than verifieti 
anil Lady Lmlyn’s pupil did honour to her lessons 
vavasor Kendal found it convenient to pass a fortnigt 


A DIVORCEE. 


201 


at Allanby on his road to the Lochvardine Moors; — and 
on the tenth day of his visit, Mr. Allanby found it ne- 
cessary to turn his wife out of doors:— his Amelia, — 
the mother of his boys, — the pride if not the comfort of 
his age. — Poor old man! — heavily, indeed, was he 
fated to atone the improvidence of his rash marriage! 

From the period of Mrs. Allanby’s intimacy with the 
Tuftons and ill-omened friendship with Lady Emlyn, 
it may be concluded that Moorcroft became somewhat 
neglected. Jane Esthope was not, however, of the 
number of those who widen the breach with an alienated 
friend by cold looks or warm words. She either could 
not or would not see that, since the lady of the hall had 
linked herself with the gay and brilliant, she had learned 
to undervalue the comfort derived from her humbler 
friendship; that while basking in the splendours of the 
sunshine, she allowed her foot to trample the forgotten 
glow-w’orm whose mild radiance had been so beautiful 
in her eyes during the season of obscurity. Jane could 
discern nothing but merit in Mrs. Allanby; she chose 
to believe that Amelia did but adopt the becoming tone 
and duties of her station in attaching herself to the 
magnets of the county and of her own family; and see- 
ing the lady of the hall so much gayer than during the 
earlier periods of her marriage, strove to believe her 
happier. Come when she would, Jane was sure to re- 
ceive her with a smile; but this generous forbearance of 
attachment, instead of touching her feelings and moving 
her toTa more active spirit of friendship, only tempted 
her to renew her offences. It was often weeks, some- 
times months, after her arrival from town, before she 
found leisure to saunter through the park, and enter 
that porch where of yore she had been wont to sit, 

« Stringing the jessamines that fell so thick,” 

and listening with delight to the exulting inferences 
drawn by her hostess of the love of the Creator, from 
the bounty and beauty of his creation. 

But these inferences, these lessons, now grew impor- 
tunate. Mrs. Allanby had learnt to appreciate the 
splendour of a ball at Carlton House, and no longer 
needed the brightness of a summer morning;— had been 
taught to admire the quivering of a pair of diamond ear- 
rings, and to despise the dew drops on the thorn;— to 


202 


A DlVOKCfiE. 


care for no roses but those looping up her court dress, — 
no music but that of an Italian orchestra. The pic- 
turesque charms of Moorcroft sometimes tempted her 
to regret that it was not situated at Harrow or Batter- 
sea, so that she might render it the locale of a fete 
champ^tre; or that Zara might sketch it for a scene in 
some ballet or divertisement. 

Still, however, Jane Esthope remained blind to the 
growing heartlessness of the votary of fashion; for her 
nature was not ready in the detection of evil. But all 
the gratification she might have derived from the packet 
of flower-seeds or patent churn vouchsafed by the fine 
lady as a token of recollection on her annual return to 
Westmoreland at the close of the season, was lost in 
the regret with which she noticed that the cheek of the 
youthful beauty was losing its freshness, her figure its 
rounded symmetry. Although insufficiently conver- 
sant with the symptoms of a life of dissipation, she 
traced the hollow eyes and parched lips of Amelia to 
the vigils of many a feverish ball-room, and the tremu- 
lous hand and peevish tone to the enervated satiety of 
luxurious indulgence. Often did she entreat Mrs. Al- 
lanby to take care of her precious health for the sake of 
her husband and children, nor did it ever occur to her 
unsophisticated mind that this form of abjuration could 
lose its power over her auditress. Long after Amelia 
had begun to neglect her boys and shun the presence of 
her husband, poor Jane persisted in imploring her to 
avoid late hours and hot rooms, if only to spare them 
the anxiety arising from her enfeebled health. 

But on the return of the family to Westmoreland 
after that last fatal season, Jane instantly perceived 
that something was sorely amiss with her friend and 
patroness, — that the mind and not the body was now 
disordered. Amelia came much oftener to Moorcroft; 
almost as often as during the first month of her sojourn 
at the hall. But she came not to avoid the Carmy- 
chaels; she came to escape from herself. She spoke in- 
coherently and inconsistency; — listened with a fixed 
and absent eye; — and betrayed her abstraction either 
by an impulsive and inexplicable smile, or still more 
frequently by the utterance of heavy, hopeless sighs. — 
Alas! how different is the sigh of guilt from that of 
sorrow. 

She no longer attempted to converse with Jane Es- 


A DIVORCEE. 


203 


thope as she had been wont to do ere fashion fixed its. 
withering grasp upon her heart. Even after she had 
become an AlmacKS beauty, and been entranced by that 
spell of public admiration which creates, at worst, the 
inebriation of frivolity, Amelia had been accustomed 
to amuse her wondering hostess with details of the mag- 
nificence of the midnight ball, or the courtesies vouch- 
safed to her by the gracious favour of royalty. But 
now, there was something lurking in her mind which 
induced reserve and duplicity, ^e dreaded the trans- 
parency of her own bosom; she trembled lest a search- 
ing glance into its secrets should reveal to the shud- 
dering Jane, the one black spirit which she had made 
its inmate. Amelia had not yet dwelt long enough 
among the impure, to have grown blind to the hideous- 
ness of illicit love! — 

But, however ignorant of the real nature of her dis- 
temperature, the humble hostess of Moorcroft grieved 
over its manifestation and its consequences. She, 
sometimes, fancied Mrs. Allanby’s intellects were be- 
coming disordered. She^ the guardian of the poor, the 
patient administrant to the sufferings of the flock-bed 
and ragged pallet, — of tlie work-house and the hovel, — 
was only too familiar with the aspect of 

“The moping madman and the idiot gay;” 

and when she beheld Amelia, after sitting entranced 
for hours, start suddenly from her reverie, and laugh 
with that hollow mirthless laugh which follows the prick 
of conscience, — when she beheld the hand in\*oluntarily 
clenched, — the blush inexplicably heightened into ver- 
milion, — the breath unconsciously accelerated — the 
heart panting visibly, — nay, even tears stealing down 
the cheeks of the young, tlie lovely, the prosperous, the 
worshipped Mrs. Allanby,--she could not but fancy 
that her reason was affected ! Jane Esthope was unac- 
I quainted with frenzy of the heart; a distemper so much 
more appalling than mere aberration of mind. 

She was afraid of renewing her cautions to Amelia 
respecting the delicacy of her health, lest her own sus- 
picions should become apparent; and began, for the 
first time, to regret the immeasurable disdain testified 
1 towards herself on all occasions by the Miss Carmy- 
chaels, and the hauteur with which even her benefactor 
tVoL.1. 18 


‘204 


A DIVORCEE, 


of the hall tlemeatted himself towards her; for it pre- 
cluded the possibility of warning them of all she saw: 
to lament and apprehend in the altered eye of her wo- 
stricken friend. Sometimes, when Amelia had made 
either little Charles or his brother Digby, the compa- 
nion of her w'alk, Jane Esthope w'as tempted to follovv 
them back through the Park, unobserved, and at a dis- 
tance, lest the children should come to harm during the 
bewilderment of their unfortunate mother. 

Mean vvhile,^ the eyes of Miss Priscilla and Miss Lu- 
cinda Carmychael were equally observant, and far more 
discerning. Rumours had long since reached them of 
Mrs. Allanby’s attachment to her cousin; which, in- 
stead of divulging to their uncle, they resolved should 
ripen into farther mischief ere they revealed her delin- 
quency. For once the weird sisters were unanimous., 
In the hope of dislodging the despised and detested lady 
of Allanby from the proud pre-eminence of a station 
where they regarded her as an intruder^ they agreed to. 
act in concert. Both promised to w'atch, — to confer,, 
— to betray,— to precipitate her from her honours. Sa- 
tisfied of her guilL they only wished to procure evi- 
dence sufficient for the enlightenment of her infatuated 
husband. 

It was under these circumstances that Vavasor Ken- 
dal made his appearance at Allanby Hall, where he was 
welcomed by its hospitable master with the urbanity 
arisiug from genuine kindliness of heart. How could he 
be otherwise than affectionate to the cousin of his dear 
Amelia.^ — Indignant at his blindness, the two Gorgons 
redoubled their vigilance; while, by tl>eir ungraciousness 
towards the young elegant, whose fastidious foppishness 
Mr. Allanby treated as a matter of jest, they did but 
augment the good-humoured indulgence of tiveir uncle. 

It was not, however, the reception accorded him by 
the squire and his maiden nieces which interested the 
feelings of the selfish Vavasor: he tvas neither disarmed 
in his evil purposes by the kindness of the one, nor irri- 
tated by the impertinence of the other. But it was, in 
truth, a source of considerable surprise and vexation to 
him, to perceive how much he had lost ground with 
Amelia. The influence of solitary reflection, — of self- 
examination, — of Jane Esthope’s society and uninten- 
tional reproofs,— and, above all, the uncontaminated at- 
mosphere of nature,— had wrought wonders. She met 


A DIVORCEE. 


205 


lier cousin with a sobered fancy, with a strict determi- 
nation to re-assume her self-control, to become “Mrs. 
Allanby” again^ — nay! to make even him forget “Ame- 
lia.*’ — It was not too late. She had sinned in permit- 
ting the tree of evil to strike root in her Eden; but it 
was still a sapling, — still to be rooted up, — still to be 
cast away to wither among the weeds of the earth. She 
told him so: — persisted in her resolution,— resented his 
Resentment; — and, for the first time, induced him to ap- 
prehend, that his influence was less than, paramount in 
her bosom. He saw that his ordinary tone of irony was 
ineft'ectual; that he had nothing to gain on the present 
occasion, either by taunting or deriding his victim. 

But he had only to assume a new method of subjuga- 
tion; for he was too well aware of his advantage to en- 
tertain much uneasiness respecting Amelia’s powers of 
self-estrangement. Vavasor, an actor of no mean ca- 
pacity, now gave himself over to an insurmountable fit 
of dejection; — talked like a misanthrope, quoted Werter 
and Rousseau, resisted (not without much compunction) 
the excellence of the Allanby venison; — ate little, drank 
less, and spoke only to give utterance to sopie melan- 
choly apophthegm. Mr. Allanby took it into his head 
that his young friend and relative must be suftering from 
pecuniary difficulties; and having, in a tone of delicacy 
which would have stricken into the heart of a less ex- 
perienced libertine, tendered him his assistance, was 
surprised to find his offers declined, while the pensive 
mood of the young sportsman deepened to a darker 
shade. He began to be half-anxious that Amelia’s 
moping cousin should hasten his departure for Lochvar- 
dine Moss, lest the waters of his own beloved Greta 
should be defiled by the crime of suicide. 

Even Jane Esthope was amazed by the miraculous 
alteration apparent in the haughty, gallant, gay. Cap- 
tain Vavasor; but the pangs of lawless love were the 
last malady likely to occur to her mind as the origin of 
his despondency.'^ She had heard of such things, but in 
a vague and apocryphal shape; — was no reader of Sun- 
day newspapers, and could trace among the legends of 
the gaffers and gammers of Allanby nothing resembling 
an infraction of the seventh commandment. — The hard- 
tasked and laborious poor have no leisure for the crimes 
generated by a life of luxury. Fancying she could de- 
tect symptoms of typhus in the brother of the county 


20G 


A DIVORCEE. 


member, she now ransacked Buchan for remedies^ sO’ 
that on Vavasor’s next visit to Moorcroft, she was able 
,to suggest a charming combination of rhubarb and sen- 
na for the removal of his imaginary humours. She might 
as well have thrown her physic to the dogsl — The vile, 
black, loathsome malady lay festering beyond her reach, 
in the inmost hollowness of his heart. 

But though the melancholy Jacques testified great 
scorn towards the medicine-chest of Moorcrott, there 
was something in its atmosphere which he found pecu- 
liarly congenial. Almost every day he contrived to pass 
an hour or two in a small sunny garden sloping to- 
wards the river, the scene of poor Jane’s choicest horti- 
culture. In the cloister-wall which served to close in 
this tranquil spot, was a deep Gothic recess, formerly 
the niche of some saintly group; around which Mrs. 
Allanby herseirhad trained plants of musk and ever- 
green roses, whose profuse flowers now hung down in 
pendant clusters, forming a screen against the sunshine. 

It was there he delighted to sit, pursuing his unhal- 
lowed meditations (an inmate somewhat different from 
the crosiered effigies of stone originally adorning the 
niche,) listening to the hoarse waters of the Greta, 
whose very name i^ characteristic of its mournful mur- 
murs; and rejoicing that poor Jane’s errands of charity 
to a sick neighbour at the farther extremity of the vil- 
lage, so often left him in undisturbed possession of a 
post which the steep woods, entangling the opposite bank 
from the verge of the stream, rendered as solitary a re- 
treat as ever favoured the sanctity of monastic seclu- 
sion. He came and went as he pleased: — ^Jane did not 
even ap9logize for leaving him to the lonely tranquillity 
which proved so salutary to his sickness. She loved 
him for loving Moorcroft, — for preferring that precious 
spot to the wider range of Allanby Park. Nothing ap- 
peared to her more natural or more praiseworthy than 
his partiality. 

Alas! that she should ever find reason to alter her 
views of his conduct! — One day, returning with her 
knitting-bag on her arm and her Bible in her pocket, 
from the poor bed-ridden wretch she had gone forth to 
comfort, Jane observed a crowd of villagers assembled 
round the wicket of Moorcroft. She trembled ! Some- 
thing she was sure was wrong. Perhaps poor old Ali- 
son, the survivor of her decrepit household, had died 


A DiVORCEi^. 


'20t 

^\i(ldenlj: — perhaps the melancholy Captain Kendal 
had come to some mischance. Her heart beat as she 
reached the little gronpj — she dared not speak — she 
dared not interrogate them, nor did any of the throng 
appear inclined to accost her. At length a gossipping 
farmer’s wife found it impossible to repress the tale. A 
disgraceful discovery had taken place?— the Cariny- 
chaels and their witnesses had so well chosen their time, 
so well preconcerted their plans, that not a doubt of his 
dishonour could remain to solace the wretchedness of 
Amelia’s husband. Forbidden to re-approach the Hall, 
the miserable woman stayed weeping at Moorcroft, till 
her cousin’s travelling carriage was despatched ^o con- 
vey the delinquents from the scene of their detection. 
But she was already gone! — Mrs. Allanby had quitted 
the country for ever; — her children were motherless;— 
her husband a disgraced and heart-broken man! — 

Jane did not weep at these tidings; — she was horror- 
struck. The ground seemed opening at her feet! Was 
it on two such ingrates that Heaven had designed to 
shower its ill-requited blessings? — She crept into her 
own polluted dwelling, and knelt down and prayed that 
one more instance of its mercy might still be vouchsafed 
to the erring Amelia; — that God would forgive her her 
trespasses, and grant her time to repent them. 

The guilty pair mean while took refuge in London; 
and the feelings of the chief oftender may be inferred 
from the following epistle, addressed to his brother the 
Colonel: — 

‘‘My dear K 

“For the love of Heaven, pay over two hundred to 
my account at Cox and Greenwood’s, as soon as possi^ 
ble. You shall liave my note for it, or what you will; 
but I must be oft* to France before to-morrow morning. 

1 should have applied to my father, but suppose the re- 
port of the blow-up has already reached him. Never 
was there a business so cursedly mis-managed! I have 
got Amelia on my hands, and what to do with her 1 
know not. There will be a trial and all that sort of 
thing, and the sooner I get out of the way of those 
damned brothers others, and of my own damned credit- 
ors the better. Pray break the business to Angeliquev 

Yours ever, W IL 
U* 


208 


A divorcee; 


Such was the man for whom Amelia had sacrificed 
“ Her all on earth, her more than all in heaven}” 

— such the being for whom she had abandoned her hap- 
py home, her noble sons, and their kind, disinterested, 
confiding, honourable father. 

“No, gentlemen, do not talk to me of a divorce,’’ 
said Mr. Allanby to the men of the law introduced into 
his presence by Prissy and Lucinda. “My ignominy 
is flagrant enough already. She is gone, — I shall hear 
of her no more ! Let me spare her parents, — her bro- 
thersj — they have not sinned against me. I have but a 
few years to live^ she has shaken the last sands in my 
glassj — let me not be disturbed by the publicity of pro- 
ceedings which will serve no good purpose, either to 
myself or society. Let not the world learn what wicked- 
ness may exist in the minds of those it prizes as its best 
and fairest.-^No ! — no divorce.” 

Priscilla and her pet lawyers now pleaded the neces- 
sity of superseding Amelia’s rights over her children. 
“As your widow,” said they, “she will be able to as- 
sert ” 

“ Well — be it so, then !” interrupted the heart-broken 
old man. “But be merciful, and consult me no farther 
on the process of annulling our marriage. Be speedy, 
too, or I shall not survive to witness this hateful mea- 
sure.” 

He did, however, survive to learn that a large amount 
of damages was awarded him by the strange mode of 
compensation for his wrongs suggested by the commer- 
cial habits of his country, and that he was now included 
among the “damned creditors” of Captain Vavasor 
Kendal. He did survive to hear that his divorce-bill 
had passed the Lords, — received the royal assent;-— 
that the dishonour of his ancient name was now recorded 
in the archives of Great Britain ! He lived just three 
weeks after the event which made his children the char- 
tered offspring of a castaway; bequeathing them to the 
guardianship of his two immaculate nieces. 

When Mr. Allanby ’s funeral procession, on its way 
to the parish church, passed the gate leading to Moor- 
croft, an involuntary groan burst from the multitude of 
his tenants who were following to render the last tri- 
bute of respect to their benefactor! Among others, the 
Tufton Castle carriages graced the train, adorned with 


A DIVORCEE. 


^09 

their due proportion of weepers and hatbands; but it 
never occurred to Lady Sophia, that she had aided and 
abetted in the murder of the worthy neighbour whose 
obsequies she was assisting to solemnize. 


CHAPTER VII. 


Celui qu’on aime est le vengeur des fautes qu’on a commises sui* cette 
lerre. La divinity lui prete son pouvoir. Stael. 


Weary and revolting is the task of transcribing the 
records of shame, and willingly do we pass over the two 
years — the two grievous yea.rs — which followed Ame- 
lia’s dishonour and Mr. Allanby’s decease. We for- 
bear to trace the wanderings of her miserable career till 
we find her installed in a shabby suite of apartments of 
an obscure hotel in Paris; or to dwell upon the gradual 
loss of beauty, cheerfulness and temper, which accompa- 
nied the forfeiture of her self-esteem. She was no longer 
capable of amusing herself; yet no one vouchsafed to 
amuse her; no longer willing to be alone, yet no one 
deigned to share her solitude. Every better quality of 
her heart, every higher qualification of her nature, 
seemed blighted by that single frailty which had pre- 
cipitated her from the station hallowed to her by the 
marriage vow. She was now as wretched ^s she was 
guilty: — a being branded with the fatal iron; — a mother 
severed from her children; — a woman rejected by her 
sex: — she was a divorcee! 

It is true she was again a wife, — the wife of the liber- 
tine seducer. Vavasor had been too apprehensive of 
the indignation of her six tall brothers, nottoaftbrd her 
what the world terms '•‘such reparation as lay in his 
power.” She shared his name, his beggary, the mise- 
ries provoked by his selfish vices, the broils created by 
his ungovernable temper; trembled under his frown, 
languished under his neglect, and withered beneath the 
callous sneering inditference of his demeanour. Re- 
srardinjr her as the cause of his ruin, he continually re- 

D O 


210 


A DIV ORCElE. 


minded her that the disgrace she had brought on him 
Was the origin of his own disinheritance, of the rupture 
of his brother’s marriage with the Clapharn heiress^ of 
his flight from his native country (where previous to 
the verdict which adjudged him to the payment of ,£5000 
as a compensation to Mr. Allanby ior the loss of his 
children’s mother, he had incurred pressing debts to an 
amount more than doubling that of his expected patri- 
mony,) as well as of his addiction to the vices of gaming 
and drunkenness, which he aftected to adopt as re- 
sources against the wretchedness entailed upon him by 
his unlucky marriage. 

Amelia resented not these accusations; she was now 
too fearfully habituated to the spectacle of his violence 
to venture on remonstrance or vindication. She knew 
that her father had cursed her, that her mother had 
gone down to the grave without pronouncing her name; 
that her brothers had been disgraced in their honourable 
career by her “ungrateful injury” against their bene- 
factor; that her two fair boys were subjected to the ty- 
ranny of the Carrayehaels, and educated in the sullen 
loneliness of home, lest at a public school they should 
be taunted w'ith their mother’s shame. She knew all 
this: — that the spirited Frederick w'as now a destitute 
and desperate man; that Vavasor had been compelled to 
accept a chaplaincy in some pestiferous settlement on 
the Gold Coast; that her whole family had testified bj^ 
sudden ruin their former dependence on the generosity 
of the man she had destroyed. But she said not a w ord ! 
During her husband’s absence she remained plunged in 
the despondency of irremediable anguish; and during 
his presence, assumed that flighty, unnatural tone of 
gaiety which his reproaches demanded in acknowledg- 
ment for the sacrifices he had made her. Alas I her 
merriment sounded like a hollow' echo to the anguish of 
her bosom. 

In compliance with Vavasor’s exactions, she even la* 
boured to offer an apology for the folly of his preference 
in the eyes of the world' by tfie exhibition and adorn- 
ment of her faded charms. As far as the sordid pit* 
tince allowed him by his brother, or occasional gifts 
doled out by Lady Emlyn to his necessities, or the still 
more fluctuating contingencies of a gambler’s life would 
admit, she strove to do him honour among liis Parisian 
associates by accompanying him to plaices of public 


A DIVORCEE. 


211 


amusement, where the wreck of her loveliness, arrayed 
in the meretricious graces of Parisian art, still ensured 
universal admiration. Surrounded by his libertine com* 
panions (for what but libertines would become the com- 
panions of Vavasor Kendal) she tried to laugh, to trifle, 
to beguile the time, like the rest of the giddy throng; 
but her heart was breaking, and her mind harassed al- 
most beyond the bounds of reason. 

On these occasions, her quick ear was often wounded 
by the familiarity of speech adopted by men who were 
formerly accustomed to approach her with the reverence 
due to a superior being: — her eye sometimes quailed be- 
neath the licentious gaze fixed upon her beauty by those 
to whom the public annals of the law had revealed her 
disgrace; — nay! her hand more than once recoiled from 
a freedom of touch which, as a woman, she still felt her 
right to resent. Sometimes, rushing to her own cham- 
ber she burst into a flood of bitter tears, when allusions 
were hazarded before the degraded wife of Captain 
Kendal, which the offenders “would rather have burnt 
their tongues off*” than breathed before the unblemished 
wife of Mr. Allanby; and often trembling on her sleep- 
less pillow, she dreaded to close her eyes lest the visions 
of the night should bring before her the figure of him 
who was now mouldering in the vaults of Allanby, — or 
the smiling faces, the tender voices of the children 
whose cradle she had abandoned. “That way madness 
lay !” Of those boys she dare not think. She humbly 
blessed Heaven that it had spared her the misery of be- 
coming mother to a child of shame; — even while wring- 
ing her hands in speechless despair to think tliat the Ift- 
tle arms which had been wont to fold around her neck, 
would meet her grasp no more; that the little beings she 
had cherished in her bosom were already instructed to 
think of her with loathing. There was nothing past, 
present, or future, on which she could reflect with com- 
fort. She crouched beneath the hand of the avenger; 
she shrank from the insulting scorn of the world;— s/te 
was a divorcee! 

More than once she had been brought in accidental 
but most humiliating contact with her countrywomen; 
with English ladies of fashion who, by their fussy and 
strongly marked anxiety to seem unaware of her proxi- 
mity, only rendered their consciousness of her presence 
more insultingly apparent. The sister of her husband 


212 


A DIVORCEE. 


visited Paris: and poor Amelia, so long secluded from 
the society of her own sex, anticipated pleasure even 
from the notice of Lady Emlyn. But no! — the fashion- 
able beauty knew her own reputation to be too fragile 
to warrant her notice of the reprobated Mrs. Vavasor 
Kendal; and after expressing a thousand delicate scru- 
ples and a hope that her beloved brother would not re- 
sent her refusal by depriving her of his company,— -sh& 
acknowledged that she respected the customs of society 
too much to visit — a divorcee. 

For a single moment Amelia did hope that her hus- 
band would gratify her by some token of remaining at- 
tachment, and mark his sense of Lady Emlyn’s hard- 
ness of heart; but on finding that his sister’s establish- 
ment in Paris was arranged on the most splendid footing, 
and looking round on their own denuded apartments, 
she acknowledged with a sigh that she had no longer 
any pretensions to such a sacrifice. And it was well 
that she submitted so patiently to the trial; for she soon 
discovered that not a scruple on the subject ever en- 
tered his head. He was only too happy in an excuse 
for absenting himself from his miserable home; only too 
enchanted to find occasion for varying his mornings at 
the billiard table and nights at the hazard table, with 
the sumptuous entertainments of Lord Emlyn and the 
fashionable coteries of her ladyship* In time, these 
coteries tended to make him still more discontented 
with his doleful menage. While Amelia recollected 
with a shudder the mysteries revealed to her concern- 
ing her sister-in-law by the intimacy in which they for- 
merly lived, and the horror with which the first disco- 
very of her vices had inspired her mind, — Lady Emlyn 
refrained not from pointing out to lier brother the folly 
of braving received opinions, the rashness of his whole 
conduct relatively to his cousin, — the madness of his 
elopement, the still greater absurdity of his marriage, 
the awkwardness of his present position, and the fruit- 
lessness of attempting to benefit by her notice and in- 
troduction to the higher circles of Paris, a man so lost 
to society as the husband of — a divorcee! 

From such reprehensions. Vavasor returned home 
more morose than ever. He had long regarded Amelia 
as a mill-stone round his neck. He would have got 
rid of her on any terms: heartily wished that some 
blockhead, as inexperienced as himself of yore, would 


A DIVORCEE. 


213 


carry her off. He had long despised, he now began to 
loathe her: — he scorned the partner of his crime, and 
hated the partner of his poverty. It was no longer an 
object to him to make a secret of his profligacy. In 
defiance of her entreaties, in spite of her tears, he per- 
sisted in a career of vice which did but aggravate their 
misfortunes. He soon avoided their Joyless home by 
spending whole days in frivolous dissipation, and whole 
nights at the gaming-table. Who was there to take 
part with the neglected wife ? — Who was there to advo- 
cate the cause of the poor abject divorceep 

And yet for worlds would not Amelia have breathed 
one word of complaint or accusation against the sa- 
vage who so bitterly revenged upon herself her own in- 
juries against others! It was not that she still che- 
rished that fervour of attachment which renders the 
most flinty path as smooth as greensward, and tempers 
the most stormy wind to a fond and faithful wife. 
Could she have deceived herself into the maintenance 
of her former delusion that he loved her — poverty penu- 
ry, — nay! even the disdains of the world and the scorn, 
of his hypocritical sister— would have been borne with 
cheerfulness. But she could not so deceive herself.. 
7Vw//i was “the iron which entered her soul.” She 
saw herself abandoned by him in whom she had put 
her trust; by him who, amid all her shame^ was bound 
to honour her; and instead of repining at the injury, 
humbly laid her submission to this last, worst, trial, as. 
a sacrifice on the altar of God. She knew that 
** Man but wrought his will to lay her low.” 

Nor was it a matter of consolation to her that others 
(sometimes an acquaintance of her happier days, some- 
times an honourable friend of her brothers , — always 
Englishmen,) tendered her the same outward tributes of 
respect she had formerly commanded. While they ad- 
dressed her with deference, evinced their consideration 
for her opinion, or treated her with the courtesy due 
to the virtuous and the good, she felt her heart sink 
within her. She half feared they might be ignorant of 
the fatal truth,— that they might not know the miserable 
tenure of her position; and in the bitterness of her soul 
could hardly refrain from exclaiming, “Do not honour 
me thus,— do not be thus gentle, thus considerate. I 
am a disgraced womam; — I am a divorcesp^^ 


214 


A DIVORCEE. 


Where — where could she turn for consolation from 
the stony heart from which she was rejected? — Though 
knowing herself abhorred, she had no alternative but 
to remain and eat the bread his grudging eye rendered 
so bitter. She could not arise and go to her father; — 
Aer father had reviled and disowned her. — could 
not approach the unpolluted dwelling of her sisters, or 
expose her brothers to the shame of her presence. — 
There was no hiding place for heron earth but the roof 
of the partner of her guilt. Whatever might be his 
conduct, she was bound to bear it, — whatever might be 
her sufferings, she had forfeited her right to complain. 
She was a divorcee! 

Fortunately, — and it was the only favour fortune was 
capable of bestowing on so miserable an outcast, — the 
prolonged anguish of her mind accelerated the decay 
of her mortal frame. Amid all her privations and all 
her sorrow, she found her health failing; and the first 
symptom of serious indisposition which became manifest 
afforded her the last hope of the miserable : — she felt 
that she might die! It was almost a bliss too great for 
a sinner like herself to anticipate release from her house 
of bondage. She knew that it was her duty to resist the 
merciful hand which promised to lead her to the land of 
peace and promise; she knew that the gift of life is a sa- 
cred deposite in our hands, — that she was bound to wres- 
tle with disease, and cling to the two-edged sword that 
was cutting into her heart of hearts. Time, and at no 
distant period, must set her free; and she trusted it 
was not sinful presumption which encouraged her to 
pray that her intervening pilgrimage might be calm; — 
that her departure might be unruffled by storms; — that 
no very cruel act on the part of Vavasor might disturb 
her last moments. 


A DIVORCEE. 


215 


CHAPTER VIIL 


Is this that haughty, gallant, gay Lothario? Eowe. 


The infirmity of Amelia’s health served at least to 
■velease her from those forced efforts of gaiety which 
had recoiled so heavily on her feelings. Her day 
for vivacity was gone. — In an atmosphere whose buoy- 
ance is exhausted, the feather falls as heavily as the plum- 
met. 

But instead of commiserating the languor and feebleness 
extending from the physical to the moral existence of the 
invalid, Vavasor only made her dulness an excuse for 
flying to the relief of society more congenial with his own 
tendency to vice and folly. Lady Einlyn, who in Lon- 
don was the leader of a coterie devoted to the excitements 
of high-play, — a coterie that felt privileged to inveigh with 
horror against “gambling,” because its members ven- 
tured their thousands on games where cunning tempers 
the fortuities of chance, — on the manoeuvres of ecarte 
and whist instead of the dare-all risks of hazard and 
rouge-et-noir, — had now removed her card-table from 
Grosvenor Square to a splendid hotel in the Rue Rivoli; 
where she had the honour of assembling, twice a week, 
a larger proportion of the idle and licentious of the ex- 
clusive caste, than could be found in any other suite of 
drawing-rooms in civilized Europe. Her salon was in 
fact crowded with busy ranks of those swindlers of dis- 
tinction who, in opposition to their brethren of lower pre- 
tensions, (the chevaliers d’industrie,) ought surely to be 
termed the chevaliers de la paresse. Among these, the 
brilliant air and lively effrontery of Captain Kendal se- 
cured him a warm acceptance^ and by frequenting the 
circle of Lady Emlyn, he had not only the gratification 
of escaping from the insipid mediocrity of the home .his 
vices had created, but acquired the power of indulging 
in others which were now^ still dearer to his heart. 

Vavasor Kendal was an expert player. Like other fri- 


A DIVORCEE. 


21Q 

and his success had been the means, on more than one 
occasion, of extending his m'eans of disgraceful enjoyment* 
At least, however, his career lay on the verge of a preci- 
pice; for playing at a stake beyond the limit of his for- 
tune, a single faltering step might at any hour precipi- 
tate him into an abyss of shame and ruin. Amelia was 
often tempted to doubt whetlier she had more cause to 
dread that intoxication of triumph which induced him to 
still farther excesses, or the reverses tending to aggravate 
the violence of temper to which she was an habitual vic- 
tim. The fluctuating fortunes of the gamester, — his losses 
or gains, — were equally a source of suffering to her- 
self. But the Carnival was drawing to a close; she soon 
began ardently to wish that his sister might grow weary 
of the increasing dulness of the French capital, and mi- 
grate among other swallows of the season, in search of 
new pleasures. 

Long had she been in expectation of an announcement 
to this effect, when one night, — a cold cheerless night in 
March, ^Vavasor exceeded even his ordinary period of 
absence. The habitually dissolute of Paris rarely keep 
late hours. Vice does not form with them, as with the 
English roue, an occasional excess, but is consistent and 
regular in its habits. Captain Kendal usually returned 
home between two and three; and Amelia was accustomed 
to sit up, and by her own services lighten the labours of 
- their scanty establishment. It was s/ie, the invalid, who 
was careful to keep up light and fire for the tyrant of the 
domestic hearth. 

But on this occasion two o’clock came, — three, four, 
five o’clock, — and no Vavasor. Hour after hour she 
listened to the chime of the gaudy time-piece decoratinf>* 
their shabby apartment; and while the night advanced^ 
in all its chilly, lonely, comfortless protraction, shivered 
as she added new logs to the dying embers, and as she 
hoped or despaired of his return, alternately replaced the 
veilleuse by candles, the candles by a veilleuse. She 
had already assumed her night-apparel; and after wan- 
dering like an unquiet spirit from her own apartment to 
the sitting room and back again, a thousand, thousand 
times,— after reclining her exhausted frame and throb- 
bing head against the door of the anteroom, in the trust 
of catching the sound of his well-known step upon the 


A DIVORCED. 


217 

Stairs; she threw herself down on the sofa for a moment’s 
respite. But in a few minutes' she started up again. 

Surely that was his voice, which reached her from 
some passenger in the street below, — some passenger 
humming an air from the new Opera, according to Vava- 
sor’s custom, when returning flushed with the excitement 
of success? Again and hurriedly did she prepare for his 
reception, — again place his chair by the fire, his slippers 
beside it; and stand with a beating heart and suspended, 
breath, to await the entrance of the truant. But, no! it 
was not him. The wanderer had hastened onwards to 
Some happier home. The street was quiet again. She 
would take a-book and strive to beguile the tedioustiess 
of suspense. 

D reary indeed is that hour of the twenty-four whicll 
may be said to aflbrd the true division between night and. 
day; when even the latest watcher has retired to rest, 
while the earliest artisans scarcely yet rouse themselves 
for the renewal of their struggle with existence; — when 
even the studious, the sorrowing, and the disshpated, close 
their overwearied eyes; — and when those who “do lack, 
and suffer hunger,” enjoy that Heaven-vouchsafed stupor 
affording the only interim to their consciousness of want 
and wo. The winds whistle more shrilly in the still- 
ness of that lonely hour. Man and beast are in their lair, 
and unearthly things alone seem stirring; — the good ge- 
nius glides with a holy and hallowing influence through 
the traiK^uil dwelling of virtue; the demon grins and gib- 
bers in the deserted but reeking chambers of the vicious. 
Even sorrow has phantoms of its own: and when Amelia 
found herself a lonely watcher in the stillness pf night, the 
kind voice of old Allanby, — the voice that was wont of 
yore to bid her speak her bosom’s wish, that it might be 
granted, — often seemed creeping into the inmost cell of 
her ear. She could fancy him close beside her, — taunting 
her, — touching her, — till, starting from her seat, she 
strove to shake off* the hideous delusion. Sometimes the 
soft cordial tones of her mother, — her mother, who was 
in the grave, — seemed again dispensing those lessons of 
virtue of which her own life had afforded so pure an ex- 
ample; sometimes the playful caresses of her boys seemed 
to grow warm upon her lips — around her neck. Yes! 
she could hear them, see them;— little Charles who, in 
in his very babyhood, had been accustomed to uplift 


A DIVORCEE. 


21 » 

his tiny arm in championship of his own dear mother^—-* 
Digby, the soft, tender, loving infant, whose verylook 
was a smile, whose every action an. endearment 1 — And 
now they appeared to pass before her as strangers^ changed 
— matured-^enlightened; — without one word of fondness 
— one gesture of recognition I 

From such meditations, how horrible to start up amid 
the dreariness of night, nor find a human heart unto 
which to appeal for comfort, — a human voice from which 
to claim reply in annihilation of the spell that transfixed 
her mind. The cold cheerless room, the flickering light, 
the desolation that was around her, struck more heavily 
than ever on her heart. “Oh I that this were an omen!’^ 
she cried, with clasping hands, as she listened to the 
howling of the wind upon the lofty staircase leading to 
their remote apartments. Drawing closer over her bo- 
som the wrapper by which she attempted to exclude the 
piercing night-air, Amelia smiled at the thought of the 
chilliness of the grave, — of the grave, whore the heart 
beats not, and the fixed glassy eye is incapable of tears. 

“I shall lie among the multitudes of a strange country,’^ 
faltered shej “ there will be no one to point out with offi- 
cious finger to my sons, the dishonoured resting-place of 
their mother, — their divorced mother 1 Vavasor will be 
freed from his bondage — free to choose anew, and com- 
mence a more auspicious career. But for me he might 
have been a dilFe rent being. It is /who have hardened 
his heart and seared his mind. And ohl may Heaven 
in its mercy touch them, — that he may deal gently with 
me during the last short remnant of our union !” 

A harsh sound interrupted her contemplations; — the 
grating of his key in the outer door, — of his step in the 
anteroom. Mechanically she rose, and advanced to meet 
the truant who had kept her watching, — who had so often 
kept her watching, — so often been forgiven. A momen- 
tary glimpse of his countenance convinced her that he 
was in no mood even to wish for indulgence. His brow 
was black — his eyes red and glaring. After a terrified 
pause, she tendered him her assistance to unclasp his 
cloak; but with a deadly execration he rejected the offer. 

“ Are the servants up?” said he, sullenly. 

‘‘ Not yet.” 

“ So much the better! I must be off* before they are 
on the move.” 

“ Off? Vavasor! — for the love of Heaven — — 


A DIVORCEE. 


21 ^ 

“Be still! Do not harass me with your nonsense. I 
was a fool to come here at all; only it may be necessary 
for you to know explicitly to what you may trust fur the 
future.” 

Amelia sank stupefied into a chair. 

“ In o;ie word, I am a ruined man. To-night’s losses 
have made me as hopeless as I ought to have been long 
ago. I have lost — but no*matter! — I know I played like 
a fool. AVhat is to be expected from a miserable dog 
like me, who has thrown away his prospects, and is ha- 
rassed with all sorts of cares and annoyances.^ — No mat- 
ter! — To-morrow the thing will be blown; and before my 
creditors get wind of the business^ I shall be half way to 
Brussels.” 

“To Brussels.^” faltered Amelia. 

“Of course it is out of the question hampering myself 
witli cmnpanions of any kind at such a moment. Be- 
sides, my sister has only afforded me the means of getting- 
out of the scrape, on Condition that you return to England 
to your family. I have no longer the power of maintain- 
ing you; but if you ai'e inclined to co-operate in the only 
plan that can save us both from starving, Sophia will se^ 
cure you an allowance of fifty or sixty pounds a-year.” 

Amelia was silent. 

“If not, you must take your chance; (or I can do no- 
thing farther for you. For Heaven’s sake don’t treat me 
with a scene; for I have only a few minutes to pack up . 
liiy property ! The fiacre is \Vaiting; there is not a mo- 
ment to lose. Well, Amelia! what do you say? — I want 
an answer. Do you, or do you not choose to go to Eng- 
land?”— 

Amelia made an affirmative movement;~she could not 
utter a syllable. And Vavasor instantly passed into his 
own room to make his preparations for immediate flight 
— She'iiever knew in what manner he took his last leave 
of her. When the servants proceeded to their occupa- 
tions on the following morning, they found her insensible 
on the ground; but when restored to consciousness, the 
continued absence of her husband artd a'note of five hun- 
dred franks which he had deposited in her work-box for 
the purpose of enabling her to quit Paris, served to prove 
that the dreadful impression on her mind was not a mere 
delusion of the night. Alas!, she was soon compelled to 
udmit that she had looked upon him for the last timc< 


220 


A DlVORCtft^ 


CHAPTER IX. 


The only art her guilt\o cover, 

And hide her shame from every eye — 

To bring repentance to her lover, 

And wring his bosom — is to die I 

Goldsmith. 


It was a considerable relief to the attendant hired bj 
the Unfortunate Amelia to accompany her to England> 
whenj'ht length, the invalid reached London in safety, 
and dismissed him from his disagreeable responsibility* 
The man naturally imagined that among assembled thou- 
sands of her fellow-countrymen “ cetle jeune dame si 
aiinahle, — si souffrante^ — ne pouvait manquer d^amis et 
de protection.^’ Little did he imagine, when he quitted 
her in the miserable lodgings in which she took refuge, 
how brilliant a part she had once played in that gorgeous 
pageant of London life I 

Yet among those thousands, not one — not a single per- 
son was to be found, —unto whom Amelia would have 
presumed to make known her situation. A divorcee, — a 
woman under the ban of society, — she was well aware 
that such an appeal would be rejected with scorn by those 
who formerly shared her career, and far exceeded her de- 
linquencies; and with whom her paverty alone would 
form a sufficient mojtive for consigning her to oblivion* 
The fashionable world traffics on the principle of a mutu- 
al exchange of amusement, and will not be defrauded of 
a fair return for its expenditure. Like the chariot of 
TuUia, it drives onward in its noisy triumph over the bo- 
dies of the fallen, — however dear, however venerable! 
Perhaps, after all, the triflers are in the right;— it would 
be adding insult to injury did they tender their glass 
beads and tinsel toys as a token of sympathy, in lieu of 
the tears we ask, and which they know not how to shed 1—. 

Poor Amelia, as she cowered over her scanty fire,— 


A DiVORCEfc. 


221 


Ireitiulous with the exhaustion of her disorder, and over* 
whelmed by the loneliness of her own soul, — experienced 
not the slightest inclination to force her miseries on the 
notice of her former associates, — the butterflies of May 
Fair. From her birth she had known but three real 
friends. Two of them she had survived ;-**and of her 
own part in that survivorship she dared not think. Her 
mother, — Mr. Allanby,-*-they whom she fancied would 
have commiserated her sufferings even in her very guilt, 
were in the grave she had dug beneath their feet; — but 
the third — her own good generous Jane was still living, 
still good, still generous. She knew she had accelerated 
the death of Mrs. Kendal and her husband; of Jane Es* 
thope she had only caused the ruin! 

Misled by the false representations of his prudish nieces, 
Mr. Allanby had been induce'd to believe his grateful pro- 
tegee a participator in the frailties of his wife. It was 
proved to him that Amelia and Vavasor had been frequent* 
ly seen to meet at Moorcroft; oftener during the absence, 
but sometimes in the very presence of its mistress; and he 
had little reason to believe dhat such perfect simplicity 
could exist in any female bosom, as that which prevented 
Jane Estliope from thinking evil of an attachment subsist* 
ing between cousin and cousin. He judged it impossible 
but that she had both seen and understood and sanctioned 
their proceedings; and remembering with indignation the 
■ kindly impulse which induced him to provide her with a 
home, being homeless, — and with protection, being father- 
less, — he did not hesitate to request she would seek her 
future residence elsewhere than on his estates, and leave 
Moorcroft to be levelled with the dust, or suftered to fall 
to decay. 

His commands were executed, without appeal or mur- 
muring, by his lowly and patient tenant. She was too 
deeply afflicted by all that had occurred, to anticipate any 
renevval of happy days in her old home. She felt that it 
had been polluted ;-**-that her neighbours of the village 
(even those who had loved her longest and taxed her kind- 
ness most) w'ere beginning to look upon her with an eye 
of mistrust. She was more tlian once melted into tears 
by a struggle at her gate between the two little motherless 
boys antHheir attendants— Charlie and Digby insisting 
thk they might possibly find mamma at Moorcroft, where 
’•they had so often found her before;— and the new servants 


^22 


A DIVORCEE. 


selected by tlm Misses Carmychael, harshly forewarning 
them that Moorcroft was a bad place, and that they must 
never again set foot within its gates. Jane’s obedience to 
Mr. Allanby’s decree was as prompt as it was unresent-' 
ful; and long before Amelia’s divorce was legalized, Jane 
—poor Jane — had torn herself from her native village, 
where every hovel, every stile, every pollard stump, was 
dear and familiar to her; and gone to settle at Graundton, 
a hamlet within a few miles of the verge of Allanby es- 
tates. She had conceived it possible to live in exile from 
her father’s parish, — but not from his county. She did 
not dream of the possibility of quitting Westmoreland, 

Her new residence was a very small and inconvenient 
cottage. She had no longer any heart to attempt the re- 
newal of her little farm; but resolved to limit her occupa- 
tions to ministering to the sick, and working for the poor. 
The holy concord of her feelings was over; and deeply did 
she grieve that she could no longer look around her with 
the same trusting eye, the same benevolent impressions. 
AAe had forgiven the persons whose conduct had been the 
means of ettVcting this grievous change, — she trusted Hea- 
ven would forgive tlietn also; and “poor Amelia” was 
remembered in her daily prayers, with the same fervour 
that had tendered to the interposition of Providence the 
destinies of the beloved Mrs. Allanby. 

The recollection of this spontaneous act of womanly 
and Christian charity was very precious to the worthy 
Jane, when she received the letter ot the dying penitent, 
apprizing her of her destitution, her wretchedness, her 
trust in the mercies of one to whom she had proved so 
mischievous a friend. For the first time she began to 
wish she had pitched'her tent farther from Allanby''HalI; 
lest it might injure the unhappy suiferer to remove to the 
home she instantly determined "^to ofier her. She did more 
than q/7er, for that even might the Gentiles -Hiave done: 
but she, the inexperienced and untravelled Jane, actually 

set forwai’d towards the mighty wilderness of London; 

actually surmounted the difficulties presenting themselves 
between the J3ull and Mouth and Wardour" Street; and 
finally , between soothing, and nursing, and prescribing, — s? 
chiding, encouraging, and assisting,— managed to re-con- 
vey the fragile object of her solicitude to the purer atmos- 
phere of Graundsion. She now began to rejoice that she 
bad ever found courage to withhold a portion of her scanty 


A DIVORCEE. 


223 

Hoard from the wants of the poor, in preparation for her 
wu exigencies of sickness and old age. 

Who indeed could she have found either poorer or more 
feeble, than the perishing Amelia? — But the Almighty 
willed not that she shoLuld be of the number of those who 
perish eternally. All that contrition might avail to sooth 
a slow and tormenting progress to the grave, was vouch- 
safed her. With a wasting brow, — an extinguished voice, 
• a broken heart, — she listened anew to Jane Esthope’s 
lesson^ of wisdom. Faith and hope are exercises of a 
Christian spirit consonant even with the tears of penitence, 
— the moans of physical suffering! 

No seeker after penances ever practised greater self-de- 
nial, than that which induced her to refrain from seeking 
the forgiveness of her brothers and sisters, lest she should 
blot a happy page of their existence by reminding them 
they had a guilty, and teaching them they had a dying re- 
lative. No devotee crawling on his abject knees round 
the shrine of Loretto, or ascending in sackcloth the steps 
of the santissima scala, ever executed an act of expiation 
arising more purely from piety and self-abasement, than 
that which prompted her to visit the abandoned tenement 
of Moorcroft: — to pause in the porch now closed over 
with its jessamine humbling herself in the dust, while the 
trembling Jane wiped from her livid forehead the heavy 
dews of approaching dissolution; and to enter the village 
church of Allanby, and commune with her purified and 
repentant soul on the gravestone of her husband. She 
looked up to the wall of the church, trembling as the 
ghastly glimmer of a marble effigy showed her the monu- 
ment of the man she had betrayed: — and it was almost a 
consolation to her to know that retribution had already 
overtaken her crime. Her breath came shorter and shorter, 
when she remembered how soon the weeds would be 
springing over her own unhonoured remains! 

But a still greater sacrifice than all these, a far — far 
more bitter trial, was the effort of fortitude which enabled 
her to pass the day in pious resignation, when the two 
young heirs of Allanby Hall came over during their holy- 
days to attend a cricket-match on Graundston Green. She 
knew her boys were within a few hundred yards, — almost 
within sight of her dwelling; — and even fancied that if 
she listened, a mother’s ear might detect their voices—^ 


224 


A, DIVORCEfe. 


(the voice of her own dear bright-e jed Digbj) — among the 
acclamations of their sport. 

“Close the casement, dearest Jane!’’ she faltered. 
“The temptation is strong, my spirit weak, iny heart 
sinking. I have never looked upon them since, God be 
with them— God be with them ! Let me not grieve their 
young eyes with the spectacle of a dying mother: let me 
not sully their hearts with the sight of the divorcee. Come 
nearer, Jane. Read to me, — place your hand on my knee; 
I must not feel alone to-day. — Read to me, dearest! — 
Yes! there — ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that 
he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and though 
worms destroy this bodj", yet in my flesh shall I see God !’ ” 

All day she wrestled with her grief; nay, even subdued 
it. But her disease was not to be,combated even by the 
courage of the Christian. She retired to rest as usual; 
and after smoothing her pillow, Jane Esthope quitted her 
at her own request, that she might try to sleep and gain 
some respite from her anguish. — And she succeeded ia 
the attempt. When at midnight her compassionate friend 
stepped softly to the bed-side, and drew aside the curtains 
to inquire whether she needed any thing more, the sum- 
mer moonlight shone full on lier cold white face. ^ Her 
wants were over, — her sufferings past; and Jane, falling 
reverently upon her knees, and raising up her hands to 
God, prayed fervently for the eternal happiness of the di- 
vorcee. 


END OF VOL. I. . 


THE 


M 18 E:RIES of marriage 

OR, 

THE FAIR OF 1?IAY FAIR. 


BT THE ADTHOR OP 

Mothers and DaughterSy* **Pin Moneyy” Uc. Uc. 


CONTAIIflJTG 

THE SEPARATE MAINTENANCE. 

THE DIVORCEE, 

THE FLIRT OF TEN SEASONS, Ac. Ac. 
- 001 ^ 

IN TWO VOLUMES. 

VOL. IL 


PHILADELPHIA: 

E. L. CAREY & A. HART— CHESNUT STREET. 

BOSTON: 

ALLEN & TICKNOR. 


1834 . 





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CHAPTER 1. 


The gods, to curse Pamela with her prayers, 

Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders’ mares, 

The shining robes,— rich jewels,— beds of state,— 

And, to complete her bli^s, a fool for mate. 

She glares in balls, front-boxes, and the ring, 

A glittering, vain, unquiet, wretched thing. 

Pope- 

Geraldine, Lady Ormleen, wais a Peeress in her own 
riglit, or rather in right of her mother, who died in giving 
her birth. Her father, however, was only a Sir Gilbert 
Maitland, who had allied himself with the defunct Ba- 
roness, smitten with admiration of her scutcheon of pre- 
tence, her precedence, and the few thousands a-year that 
proved barely sufficient to burnish her lofty emblazon- 
ments; and as we are enabled to judge of her understand- 
ing and temper only by this election of a weak, vain, cold, 
formal, well-looking man to share her coronet-matrimo- 
nial, there seems no reason to imagine that the education 
of little Lady Ormleen would have been more efficiently 
superintended, had her ladyship been spared to preside 
over the school -room of the young peeress. 

Having thus described Sir Gilbert as an infatuated ina- 
morato of aristocratic distinctions, it may be inferred that 
his own pedigree afforded a tax on the invention, rather 
than the learning or researches of the Herald’s Office. He 
was, in fact, a new man; nay ! luckily for himself, so very 
obscure in his origin, that his accession to Sir Gilbertship 
some years previous to his marriage, was an incident quite 
secure from the sneers of the world. No one had ever 
heard of him before. No newspaper so much as hinted 
the purchase of his new honours; no fashionable coterie 
scoffed at the bad taste of aspiring to such pinckbeck dis- 
tinction as that of a modern baronetcy. His name was 
unknown either to Fame or Scandal; while the colossal 
fortune acquired by his father, (for, however obscure, he 
had a father,) in the sly peculation of some minor depart- 
VoL. II. 1 


2 


MY GRAND DAUGHTER. 


ment of the Honourable East India Company’^s Madras 
Establishment, was too cannily distributed and carefully 
husbanded, to attract prematurely the attention of society. 
Old Maitland, in whose soul all the parsimony of his na- 
tive city of Glasgow seemed concentrated, had invested 
bis money in estates in divers counties, and securities of 
every description. Instead of buying the mansion and 
park of some ruined Earl, and building a picture or statue 
galleryj instead of rendering themselves destitute by the 
acquisition of Etruscan vases, tables of Sevres, and tri- 
pods of malachite to the enrichment of half a dozen up- 
holsterers and auctioneers,— neither father nor son evinced 
the slightest tendency towards attracting the notice of the 
world by pelting it with guineas, — according to the pre- 
vaiJing fashion of nouveaux riches. 

Old Maitland hoarded his money for its own sake; and 
Sir Gilbert for the sake of its ministry to his selfish pre- 
dilections. The thing he liked best in art or nature was 
a lord. Born in ignominy, bred in obscurity, he aspired 
to raise himself out of the mud, not by personal eminence, 
but like some lieutenant of infantry, “ by purchase;” and 
having successfully truckled to and haggled with the mi- 
nister for his baronetcy, he shortly afterwards carried 
himself and his Birmingham honours to the feet of the 
Lady Ormleen. Twenty thousand a-year, and a very 
handsome person, were duly appreciated by her ladyship 
and her ladyship’s guardians, even though unappended to 
chivalrous descent; and Sir Gilbert, at length, experienced 
the unspeakable gratification of beholding the panels of 
his carriages, his service of plate, and other goods and 
chattels, sprinkled with coronets in every direction. He 
chose that all his belongings should be ennobled; and 
from the livery buttons on the stable dress of his fourth 
helper to the fish slice, every thing either at Maitland 
Hill, or Court Ormleen was carefully embellished with 
the insignia of his dignity. His attachment to his patri- 
cian bride was commensurate with her power of endow- 
ing him with the distinctions he so ardently coveted: he 
adored her in proportion to her length of pedigree; and 
seemed to love in her person all her lordly cousins, all 
her dukely progenitors. How could he do otherwise than 
study the caprices of a woman who was descended from 
a Saxon Thane; or how refuse a new diamond necklace ta 
a Baroness in her own right, whose maternal ancestors 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


3 


had ridden into England in the train of William the Con- 
queror? — 

Divers of the Ladj Bettys, her illustrious cousins, pre- 
dicted, indeed, that the obsequious spouse would not be 
able to survive the loss of so beloved a wife. But they 
were mistaken, “ Le roi est mort; vive le roiP^ cried 
Chateaubriand and the French, on the decease of Louis 
le Desire. “Lady Ormleen, my consort, is dead, — long 
live Lady Orrnleen, my daughter!” cried Sir Gilbert 
Maitland, He almost forgot the tears indispensable to 
the claims of society on becoming a widower, in the glory 
of finding himself parent to a Peeress; hastened. to issue 
orders respecting the “consistency of her ladyship’s pap;” 
and exacted that every packet of magnesia should be for- 
warded by the village apothecary, “ to the Right Honour- 
able the Lady Ormleen,*’ {tres haute et tres jmissante 
princessey agee d*un jourJ) 

For many succeeding years, Sir Gilbert existed for the 
duty of attending levees and intruding at drawing-rooms; 
giving dinners to the aristocratic kinsmen of his wife and 
daughter and getting them duly advertised in the news- 
papers; writing his name in the porter’s books at the gate 
of royalty; and above all of qualifying the new Lady Orm- 
leen to wear her ermine gracefully, and extend the mag- 
nificent connexions of the family. He had the. good for- 
tune to secure as governess the daughter of a decayed bro- 
ther baronet, — a spinster as deeply devoted as himself to 
genealogical predilections; and when Geraldine Lady 
Ormleen attained the happj" age which enabled him to re- 
quest her aunt, the Countess of Malpas, to present her at 
Court, the young debutante exhibited a tone of frigid, fas- 
tidious, tranquil elegance that did ample honour to her 
perception, but very little to the impulses of her own 
young heart. 

She had, in fact, been educated in a total abnegation of 
the illusions of life. The feelings or frailties innate in her 
bosom. Miss Stanley and Sir Gilbert never investigated; 
they taught her only the most dignified mode of repressing 
the epidemic of vulgar emotions, of deporting herself with 
dignity throughout the matter-of-fact realities of life. Her 
primer was the “ Manual of Etiquettes;” — her estimate 
nf her fellow-creatures was regulated by the table of pre- 
cedency and forms of estate. The pompous Sir Gilbert, 
who had now established himself somewhat on the footing 
of a nobleman on sutferance, minutely instructed her in the 


4 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


minor privileges of patrician descent; till in her seven- 
teenth year, Lady Ormleen looked on the follies and 
crimes of the plebeian vvorld with the contemptuous indul- 
gence that prompts the mercy of the lion towards the ver- 
min invading his den for plunder. Aware that much was 
not to be expected of such miserable creatures, she was of 
opinion that the law ought to be lenient to the larcenies 
and burglaries forming an appanage of caste io the John 
Smiths, or Dick Browns of the realm: — and was as deeply 
impressed with the degradation of “the populace, as the 
Toryest of Tory ministers. Having been informed by her 
parvenu father, that the society of London consists of some 
three thousand individuals exclusively concentrating the 
wit, learning, accomplishments, and merit of the kingdomt 
she had no more idea of extending her interest beyond this 
aristocratic ecliptic of the social firmament, than of look- 
ing for roses and lilies in a plantation of Savoy cabbages. 

Had the fair Geraldine’s mother survived, or had she 
been trained in the intercourse with persons of her own 
condition common to her rank, all these accomplishments 
would have been as natural to her as the scholarship of 
Dogberry; — associating only with persons of elegant man- 
ners and refined habits, she would have become elegant 
and refined by the ordinary course of imitation. But with 
Sir Gilbert Maitland, gentility was a labour, nobleness a 
science; and there was a species of fussy propriety abov^t all 
his words and actions, greatly resembling those efforts of 
an unpractised swimmer to keep himself from drowning, 
which induce one to fancy that he cannot be enjoying a re- 
creation. His life was made up of exertions to maintain 
those dignities which were about as much his own as the 
tinsel crown and kingly mantle of the histrionic Richard, 
who struts his hour upon the stage in borrowed lustre. 

Mean while, the appearance of the Baroness in society 
w'as hailed with universal acclamations. She was re- 
markably handsome, remarkably graceful, remarkably 
well-bred; and it was natural that the world, under the 
influence of these extrinsic excellencies, should bestow 
its partial interpretation on all the rest. The coteries of 
the beau monde could not admire her dignified elegance 
without believing it demonstrative of intrinsic excellence. 
They concluded her mind to be as well regulated as, her 
body; and while they admired the distinction of her air 
and placid composure of her brow, gave her credit for 
every nobler characteristic of gentle blood. Who, indeed 


MY GRAND DAUGHTER. 5 

"could have thought — who could have dreamed — that the 
heart of the youthful peeress was encased in the iron ar- 
mour of egotism; that the weed of pride had grown up 
and wound around her soul, till its qualities were stifled 
by the noxious enlacement; — that Lady Ormleen was 
morally as well, as physically short-sighted, and looked 
upon men and things through the medium of a golden eye- 
glass; — that she saw nothing, and could see nothing, in 
a natural way. 

It will be conjectured that a peeress positive and hei- 
ress presumptive (heiress to Sir Gilbert’s twenty thousand 
per annum, as well as possessor of the dilapidated glories 
of Court Ormleen and its bogs) could not fail to attract 

braw wooers plenty.” Like a princess in a fairy tale, or 
Portia in the drama, she was courted in person, and by 
proxy, — by princes of Morocco and royal Danes; dukes 
irom theFaubourg St. Germain, “lords of theirpresence 
and no land beside,” unrolled their parchments for her 
admiration, and talked to her of Charlemagne as among 
their more recent and familiar progenitors: — a descendant 
of Fin-Ma-Coul, standing six leet six in his boots, boasted 
his inches, — a Highland Earl oftered her a county, and 
all the thistles and kail cultivated therein, for her join- 
ture, — a Sicilian Baron, his castles a la Radcliffe, — till 
poor Sir Gilbert, dearly as he loved such studies, w’as 
sorely puzzled in cro^s-examining the testimony of Col- 
lin’s Peerage, the Almanack of Saxe Gotha, and the An- 
na! i Istorichi of the Abbate Sansovino. His mind was in a 
perpetual confusion of crowns and coronets, and feoffs 
chieftainries; gules, or, argent, bends, wavy, and fess. 
An untravelled man, and, like most of his countrymen, per- 
plexed in the extreme to determine the comparative va- 
lue of Britisli and foreign nobility, he was for a moment 
tempted by the lofty announcement of sua Eccelenza the 
Prince of Castello Aspradelvalle, ex*chamberlain to the 
late King of the Two Sicilies, and Grand Master to the 
Palermitan order of the Cignoe 6Voc^ (without entertain- 
ing the slightest suspicion that the said illustrious High 
Mightiness was a Sicilian squire, deriving his subsistence 
from the retail sale of his sour Terra-mota wine, who had 
given lessons of fencing at Vienna, and of the Italian lan- 
guage at Paris;) and was again tempted by the magnilo- 
quent superscription of his Right-luminous Highness the 
Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Bergenzitmershausen (uncoa^ 

1 * 


G 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


scious that his Transparency had officiated as a candle 
snuffer to a billiard-table in Dresden.) It was well for his 
‘‘right honourable daughter” that the Baronet, though 
blind and blundering, was not inclined to be precipitate, 
in the choice of a son-in-law. 


CHAPTER II. 

A quelques uas I'arrogance tient lieu de grandeur.- 

La Bruyere. 

And did the heart of the youthful Lady Ormleen whis- 
per nothing all this time, and claim no share in the de- 
bate? Well-tutored as she was, and worthy to shine in the 
pas grave of a minuet de la cour at a birth-night ball, had 
she no partialities among the powdered beaux who strut- 
ted before her in their bags and swords?-— no preference 
between the Prince Ludovico of Gastello Aspradelvalle, 
and Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Bergenzitmershausen?— ^ 
Beneath the hi»h-bred coldness of her smile, the dignified 
tranquillity of her brow, was no flutter of spirit conceal- 
ed? Was she alone exempted from that mighty touch of 
nature which makes the whole world kin?- — 

Certainly not! The Chinese are not born with their 
little feet, nor the terrier with its peaked earsj nor the 
fine lady with her elegant insensibility: — 

“ Nature works in every breast; 

Instinct is never quite suppress’d;’* 

and it was only by the influence of art, by the miraculous 
povver of education, that Miss Stanley had enabled Lady 
Ormleen to speak in a monotonous whisper, to enter a 
room with a step as equal a^ if it had been regulated by 
the pendulum of one of Maelzel’s metrenomes, and to re- 
ceive the adulation of Lord Adolphus Fermoy, Sir Mar- 
maduke Brosier, Sir Harry, and my Lord Duke, with a 
brow as undemonstrative as that of one of Roubilliac’s 
fiusts. Lady Ormleen had felt her heart beat somewhat 
'quicker than beseemed this marble tranquillity of deport- 
men tj-^^she had found the hurried words perplexed in her 
Utterance; — she /md experienced that dull, blank vacancy 
\vhich opipresses the mind-. 


my grand-daughter; f 

“ Then, when some weli-g^raced lover quits the room.*’ 

It was one night at a ball at the Duchess of Gordon’s in 
Piccadilly, that a young riian of highly prepossessing ap- 
pearance was presented to her by a certain good-humoured 
old Lady Shetland, who qualified her formal nomination 
of “ Captain Dalrymple” with a scarcely audible whisper 
of — “I dare say, my dear Lady Ormleen, you have 
heard all about him; — Lord Inverarie’s eldest son, yon 
^now.” Her young ladyship bowed, without plead- 
ing guilty to her ignorance on the subject. Feel- 
ing that Lord Inverarie’s eldest son was a very pro- 
per partner for her; and finding in Captain Dalrymple the 
most amiable, the most cultivated, the “ wisest, virtuousest, 
discreetest, best,” of all those who had hitherto guided 
her steps through the mazes of the cotillon, she permit- 
ted herself to smile with great warmth, and talk and 
listen with greater freedom, than she had ever done before. 
There was something very fascinating in the dignity of 
his fine countenance, occasionally, but rarely illuminated 
by a burst of enthusiasm in the utterance of a noble sen- 
timent— the description of a beautiful object. And then 
he was a bit of a hero. He had shared a leaf of the lau- 
rels of the great Rodney, in his triumph over De Grasse; 
and was just retm-ned from Paris, where he had assisted 
in the theatricals of the Petit Trianon, and learned to 
talk with rapture of the blue eyes of Madame de Lamballe, 
with feeling of the graceful accomplishments of Marie 
Antoinette. In short, he was quite a man to be fallen in 
love with; — and Lady Ormleeh, though she bestowed as 
formal a bT)W upon him at parting as she had ever done 
on his Highness of Saxe-Bergenzitmershausen, retired to 
rest to dream of his chesnut curls (the first revolutionary 
crop she had seen emancipated from powder and poma- 
tum,) and to laud the gods tliat so attractive a person 
happened to be the eldest son of a lord. 

On addressing herself to Debrett, on the following morn- 
ing, for farther information relative to her accomplished 
partner, she discovered that Inveraire was a Scotch ba- 
Tony; — that the present representative of its honours^ 
being born in the year 1718, must, at that critical anno 
domini, be seventy years of age: — and that he had mar- 
ried Mary, the daughter of Lord Annaly, deceased, by 
whom he had two sons— George and William; — George 
feeing the heir apparent, and of course the Hero of the 


B 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


Ville de Paris, as well as of the chassezs and ra^aclons 
of the preceding night. Sir Gilbert would probably have 
extended his investigations from the date of the creation 
to the very motto of the Scottish baron; but the fiiir Ge- 
raldine was sufficiently smitten to reserve her farther 
consideration for their living inheritor. 

On the following night, at Ranelagh, Prince Ludovico 
di Castello-Aspradelvalle, (we love, as Goldsmith says, 
to give the whole name,) was superseded in his attendance 
by^Captain Dalrymple. Sir Gilbert, who was now pre- 
vented from accompanying his daughter into public by an 
increasing asthma, and who was represented on such oc- 
casions by Lady Ormleen’s aunt, the Countess of Mai pas, 
was quite satisfied to learn, at her return, that she had 
been attended by Lord Adolphus Fermoy, and (in a 
lower tone) “ the son of Lord Tnverarie. ” It all sounded 
very right and proper; and he merely wheezed forth the 
expression of his hopes that Geraldine “ had made known 
to liord Adolphus his extreme regret that the infirm state 
of his health prevented him from taking a more active 
part in the cultivation of his Grace, his father’s acquaint- 
ance.” 

There was one, how'ever, among Lady Ormleen’s at- 
tendants of the evening whom she did not name to her fa- 
ther, less from want of candour, than from want of inte- 
rest respecting him. Thi? w'as a certain tall, lumbering, 
unmeaning Earl of Fairford, who probaGly considered 
himself ranked among the adorers of the young Baroness, 
inasmuch as he followed her from fete to fete, — from Ra- 
nelagh to the Pantheon, — from Cumberland House to 
Lady Granby’s; but who had never yet uttered a tender 
syllable in her presence, and, indeed, very few syllables 
of any description. He chose the shortest words, uttered 
them with the unchanging physiognomy and mechanical 
impulsion of an automaton; and seemetl disposed to stalk 
through the world as if he had neither business nor plea- 
sure in its proceedings. Of Lord Fairford, Lady Orm- 
leen said as little as of her new friend. Captain Dalrymple; 
seeing that the former never entered her head, and that 
the latter had both entered and taken forcible possession 
of her heart. 

The season (for even in the eighteenth century the ses- 
sion of Parliament was the- season of the fashionable 
world) passed glibly on;, and Lady Ormleen for the first 
time experienced all the perturbations, and hesitations, 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTEU. 


9 


and vexations, which young ladies of eighteen, whether 
peeresses or not, are apt to be afflicted withal when as^ 
sailed on the right hand and the left, in the ring-haunting 
chariot and the opera-box, the coterie and the crush, by 
a superfluity of suitors. So scrupulous an observer of 
etiquettes as the pupil of Miss Stanley and the daughter 
of Sir Gilbert Maitland, would not, of course, indulge her 
own inclinations so far as to frown upon a Duke, an Earl, 
and a Lord Adolphus, for the sake of the Captain Dal- 
rymple whose voice was so sweet in her ears, and whose 
conversation so embellished by wit, wisdom, and under- 
standing, — until the momentous hour which was to blight 
the matrimonial pretensions of the former by a decided 
“ No,” and to privilege the future Lord Inverarie by a de- 
finitive “Yes.” — Yet, strange to tell, Captain Dalrym- 
ple advanced not a single step towards the attainment of 
this interesting crisis. He exhibited all the morbid symp- 
toms of the most decided lover, — now mirthful — now me» 
lancholy — now jealous as Othella — now moody as Jaques; 
— sometimes putting forth the utmost attractions of his 
mind and manners, exerting himself to entertain, to in- 
terest, to engage the courtly lady of Court Ormleenj— 
sometimes shunning her presence for days and days, eve-- 
nings and eveningsj — nay ! even pointedly and ostensibly 
devoting his homage to other and less distinguished belles. 

Lady Ormleen, or rather Sir Gilbert as her plenipoten- 
tiary, was compelled to dismiss Prince Ferdinand of 
Saxe-Bergenzitmershausen to his barn in Westphalia, 
and Ludovico Prince Castello-Aspradelvalle to his Ne- 
apolitan garret; Lord Adolphus Fermoy having addressed 
her in a foolscap sheet of rigmarole not remarkable for 
the purity of its orthography, was refused in six lines 
of note paper; while Sir Marmaduke Brosier, who exhi- 
bited his pretensions to. the hand of the Peeress-heiress 
(or Heiress-peeress as ht estimated her attractions,) nun- 
cupatively and per favour of his family solicitor, was non- 
suited on the spot. Only two among her vassals of the 
season still remained at bay, — Lord Fairford and Captain 
Dalrvtnple; and the silence of the former still remained 
as unimpressive, as that of the latter was expletive of un- 
utterable things. Lady Ormleen wp at liberty to believe, 
(or if not, she certainly took the liberty) that it was out 
of the abundance of her favoured lover’s heart that his 
mouth did not speak. His adoration was evidently too 
great for words. She saw the bosom of the rough and 


10 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTEK. 


manly sailor swell anti his eyes §rovv dim with tears, 
when others presumed to address her in the language of 
admiration 5 but it appeared he could not yet find courage 
to give voice to his own. 

Now this was precisely the sort of lover to win the ap- 
proval as well as the fancy of the lofty, dignified, Ge- 
raldine. She saw that he regarded her with deference 5 
that he was not a vulgar, ranting lover like Lord 
Adolphus, nor a self-sufficient coxcomb like the hand- 
some Westphalian magnet with the unpronounceable 
name. She admired his respectful mistrust of his own at- 
tractions; and only smiled the^ more kindly upon him 
when he trembled in her presence, and changed colour at 
the sound of her voice. Mean while, all that could be 
said to encourage a timid man was said; — all that could 
be done to determine an undecided one, was done. Sir 
Gilbert invited him to dinner; Lady Ormleen lingered on 
his arm in the ball-room, long after the dance for which 
it had been offered was at an end; till, at length, one 
night, — one luckless night, (when Miss Stanley having 
suggested to her quondam pupil during the operations of 
the toilet, that the world was beginning to make remarks 
on her intimacy with Captain Dalrymple, and to speculate 
concerning the possible -and probable motives of its pro- 
traction without a definitive engagement) Geraldine 
stalked forth in her white satin, determined to bring the 
business to a conclusion before the end of a fete whereat 
they w'ere already engaged to dance together. Yet, some- 
how or other, her courage failed her when it came to the 
point; and the evening seemed likely to terminate without 
any material advantage attained on either side; when, 
having quitted the ball-room with him to go in search of 
her chaperon Lady Malpas, Lady Ormleen suddenly ex- 
claimed as they were traversing its brilliant suite of rooms 
together — “ It will be long, indeed, before I again enter 
this gay mansion. We have been waiting for the birth- 
day, and on Friday we leave town for Maitland Hill. 
My father is now so much better, that he has promised to 
take me over to Court Ormleen in the course of the au- 
tumn; and I trust I shall be able to persuade him to pass 
next season in Dublin. I feel as if I ought to have been 
there long ago.” 

An ordinal^ partner would have, of course, responded, 

Have you never been in Ireland?”— “ Do you imagine 
you should prefer Dublin to London?” or some other of 


MY GRAND DAUGHTER. 


n 


those luminous common-places which pass upon a chalked 
floor between young ladies in white satin, and young gen- 
tlemen in pumps. But it was not at all surprising to 
Lady Ormleen that, on hearing the announcement so art- 
fully put forth, poor Dalrymple’s arm should tremble, 
and his step relax in the precipitancy of its search after 
Lady Mai pas. • 

“To Ireland!” he ejaculated, “and so soon? And 
perhaps never to return, or to return as the bride of ano- 
ther!” 

It was now Lady Ormleen’s turn to tremble; and she 
almost repented her temerity in provoking the crisis. 
It would be difficult to say which heartbeat the quickest; 
which breath came shortest of the two lovers during the 
next five minutes; 

“ I have scarcely courage,” at length faltered the heir- 
apparent; “I know not how to venture on the chance of 
losing for ever those precious distinctions of your notice 
so generously conceded to me fOr three months past; yet 
too well am I aware that all must sooner or later be ex- 
plained; — and why — why not now? Why should I hesi- 
tate to inquire whether you, dearest Lady Ormleen, share 
in the prejudice of common minds; — whether you are to 
be swayed in your choice by a quartering more or less in 
vour coat of arm^?; whether — oh! how shall I ever ex- 
press myself intelligibly;” suddenly exclaimed poor Dal- 
rymple, his lips quivering, his complexion growing paler 
and paler, while the tears literally started from his eyes. 

Lady Ormleen was no less surprised than grieved by 
this excess of trepidation on the part of her lover: — she 
had passed the ordeal of a considerable variety of propo- 
sals, and had never met with any thing of the kind be^ 

“ Whenever I have attempted to approach this sub- 
ject,” resumed the trembling lover, “the dread of hearing 
a sentence of rejection — of reprobation — from your lips, 
has imposed silence upon mine. Geraldine! — dearest 
Geraldine!— tell me,— answer me,— and if it must be 
unfavourably, let it be gently and kindly done— alas! 
I feel that 1 have not fortitude for harsh dealing at your 
hands. The misfortune — the humiliation of my birth af- 
fords me misery enough.” 

“ Misfortune,— humiliation?” cried Lady Ormleen^ 
startled into utter disregard of the passionate pleading of 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


12 

her lover. “ What do you — what can you mean? — ttu- 
miliation! — surely I understood you from Lady Shetland 
to be the son of Lord I nverarier— Perhaps you iinagine 
that, like my father, I am a scrupulous genealogist? — 
Believe me, the date of a creation is quite lost upon 
wie.” 

“ The son of Lord Inverarie,” replied Captain Dal- 
rymple, gravely,— -almost sternly — “ the eldest son;— and 
yet degraded from the rights which ought to have waited 
on my birth ! Geraldine, I have been an outcast from 
my cradle. Know, that in giving me birth, my mother 
was not yet released from the bonds of a previous mar-^ 
riage. Lady Inverarie is perhaps known to you only as 
the Daughter of Lord Annaly; but till some months af- 
ter I saw the light, her divorce from her first husband— s* 
from the Earl of Fairford — was still unlegalized.” 

Lady Ormleen shuddered. She saw at a glance the over- 
throw of all her hopes; for it is not to be imagined that, 
trained in the school of Sir Gilbert Maitland, her deci- 
sion balanced for a moment. A nameless stigmatized 
man to become her husband, — the husband of the young 
Peeress of Court Ormleen? — Impossible, utterly impossi- 
ble! It was some consolation to her that, during the dia^ 
logue of this overwhelming communication, they had been 
gradually approaching the saloon where sat her respecta- 
ble aunt Lady Mai pas, dozing in her tissue turban, whilst 
she nodded in time to the echoes of the distant orchestra. 
A pretext was thus afforded for hurrying her reply — her 
decisive, definitive, cutting reply. — Ah! poor Dalrym^- 
pie! — as he rushed from the room during the subsequent 
process of waking up the sleepy aunt, how bitterly be- 
tween his grinding teeth did he revile the hollow courte- 
sy dictating the thanks for the honour of his preference 
which qualified Lady Ormleen’s rejection! 

In another week he was cruising among the Western 
Islands in his father’s yacht; but it was not till he 
reached the Clyde a month afterwards, on his return from 
his solitary expedition, that the newspapers first acquaint- 
ed him with the marriage of “Geraldine Baroness Orm- 
leen, of court Ormleen in the county of Monaghan, with 
the Right Honourable the Earl of Fairford, of half a do- 
zen Parks, Halls, and places in divers counties and di- 
vers kingdoms of Great Britain!” 


m -GRAND-BAUGHTER. - 


13 


'CHAPTER III. 


Oh! who can tell, save he whose heart hath trifed, 

And danced in triumph o’er the waters wide. 

The exulting sense, the pulse’s ihaddening play. 

That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way? 

That seeks what cravens shun with equal zeal, 

And where the feebler faint, can only feel, — 

Peel, to the rising bosom’s inmost core, — 

Its ho;f)e awaken, and its spirit soar! 

Bvron. 


Ten years vanish more readily, in the bold fore- 
shortening and aerial perspective of the novelist, than 
among the storms and perils and privations of a sailor’s 
fortunes. 

Having fled in despair and indignation from the scene 
of his injuries, Captain Dalrymple, on feeling 

“The waves bound beneath, him as a steed 
That knows its rider,” 

*experienced a degree of consolation such as we derive 
from the familiar welcome of an old and cordial friend. 
His professional predilections came strongly on his heart. 
He had been scorned and aggrieved on land,* — the path- 
less, the free, the uncontaminated ocean was before him. 
An application to the Admiralty, backed by the interest 
of his father, secured him one of the finest frigates in 
the service, and the Indian station; and could a more re- 
mote command have farthered his ardent desire to absent 
himself from England, he would have sought it with 
eagerness. Already he exulted in the prospect of reaching 
those i-slands of the Indian main, — those palmy shores 
and wild savannahs, where lordships and ladyships, hoops 
and plumes, are baubles still undeveloped by the progress 
of civilization; — where the dignity of the order is some- 
what invalidated by the tattooed aspect of the peerage;^ 
where sovereigns, like the swinish multitude of England, 
wear rings through their noses, — while their grooms of 
tlie bed-chamber are feathered without the previous ce-r 
' VoL. II. ^ 


14 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


remony of tarring. He had no longer patience with the 
“ herald’s boast, — the pomp of power,” or the frivolities 
of the Fair of May Fair. 

Whether the ten succeeding years of Captain Dalrym- 
ple’s professional labours and triumphant career, in both 
hemispheres and divers ships of the line, elapsed with ad- 
vantage to his wounded feelings, is immaterial^ they 
proved, at least so advantageous to his country that, on re- 
turning thither from the victory off* Ushant, an admiral’s 
salute awaited him from the batteries of Portsmouth, and 
a welcome almost paternal from the arms of his King. 
The first vacant red riband was rendered as a tribute fair- 
ly earned by the^xertions of Sir Claudius Dalrymple: and 
Ids younger brother George (now Lord Inverarie,) actually 
wept for joy in his arms, on witnessing thecompensations 
with which fortune was beginning to repair the injuries 
of his birth. The tide of popularity ran warmly in his 
favour. His physiognomy had become public property; 
illuminating the windows of all the printshops, and the 
sign-posts of many an ale-house, between Wapping and 
Gravesend:— from the wherries playing at Hungerford- 
stairs to the last newly-launched Indiaman, the “ Sir 
Claudius Dalrymple,” was the favoured craft. Then when 
naval enthusiasm was at its height, our hero, — Lady Orm- 
leen’s hero, — every body’s hero, — would certainly have 
been elected by acclamation for the city of Westmin- 
ster, and probably without ballot for any club in the liber- 
ties of St. James’s Street. 

If the new Countess of Fairford, mean while, had 
achieved no national victory, nor succeeded in planting 
the British flag on barbaric shores 

Where Europe’s anchor ne’er had bit the strand,” 

her conquests were not altogether unimportant. Her 
weak, doting father did not long survive the triumph of 
beholding in his favourite volume a record of the union of 
his daughter {his daughter!) with an Earl of nineteen de- 
scents, — whose barony dated from Poictiers, and whose 
origin from the Ark. Poor Sir Gilbert Maitland was one 
of the earliest victims to the horrors of the French Revo- 
lution; sickening at the assembling of the States Gene- 
ral, and expiring at the abolition of nobility. It was only 
wonderful that the establishment of a republican govern- 


MY GTIAND-DAUGHTER. 


15 


Tnent did not rouse him again out of his coffin! But after 
life’s fitful fever of frivolous ambition, he slept well; and 
it was now Lady Fairford’s turn to carry on his career of 
frivolous ambition; to exist for the crowd and in the crowd; 
breathing no atmosphere but that of the reeking halls of 
ostentation; acknowledging no standard of comparison in 
her loves and likings, but the barometer of ton; living as 
the beasts that perish without hope or fear, save for the re- 
alization of her daily schemes of self-aggrandizement. 

The wife of Lord Fairford had, however, somewhat di- 
verged from the object of pursuit so dear to Sir Gilbert’s 
daughter. If .Lady Ormleen courted the distinctions of 
rank, the young Counte^ss was engrossed by the worship 
of — Fashion. As yet exclusives were not: but if 

“They had not got the word they liacfthe thing” 

Absolute monarchy being somewhat in the shade at that 
opoch of revolutions, Almac^s was in a state of abeyance; 
but there were factions of rival duchesses, fierce as the 
contentions of Guelph and Ghibeline; — the fetes of modern 
Barings found their antecedent in the hospitality of a 
Thelusson or a Dottin;-T-and the Prince, whose motto of 
"“/c/i dien^^ addressed its allegiance solely to the empire 
of the Goddess of Pleasure, delighted to create a land of 
faery of his own — a midsummer night’s dream of masque- 
rades and ridottos, where Helenas and Hermias disputed 
the honour of his smiles,— where Nick Bottom in a star, 
and Peter Quince in a garter, were compelled to a labour 
of love. 

It was Lady Fairford’s glory to hold herself aloof from 
this laughter-loving court, erecting for herself a throne ot 
higher eminence to which even kings, — even the Prince 
who was “every inch a king,” — might come and bow. 
There is a certain degree of dignity in the success of any 
attempt, even to the construction of a mouse-trap. Lady 
Fairford succeeded ! — She grew to be a sort of fourth es- 
tate in the constitution of the beau monde. Like Harry 
his prototype, the Prince of Wales fled from his noisy as- 
sociates to take refuge in the high-bred grace of her lady- 
ship’s circle. S4e was at once the favourite of Frogmore 
<ind of Carltbn House; maintaining, in an age of profliga- 
cy, a purity of reputation, which (like the sunlit snows of 
Alpine summits) was irradiated by the favour of the bright 


16 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


orb over her head awhile her beauty and accomplishments 
bespoke for her a ray no less distinguishing from the as- 
cendant planet of the hour. 

There was nothing to be heard of in London but Lady 
Fairford. Her weekly parties formed a sort of secondary 
courtj her cold, calm elegance of deportment was a glass 
of fashion and a mould of form, to the debutantes of the 
day. She had, in fact, a school of rising Countesses simi- 
lar to Metternich’s class of diplomatists, — an increasing 
school, which soon extended its pernicious maxima and 
mischievous example beyond the line of ceremonies^ and 
etiquettes. Many a woman strove to imitate Lady Fair- 
ford’s dignified manner of managing her train (for trains 
were then a daily and most troublesome appendage,) till 
she acquired Lady Fairford’s mechanical smile. Lady 
Fairford’s vacant stare tlirougb her favourite eye-glass. 
Lady Fairford’s love of public admiration, Lady Fair- 
ford’s neglect of all save worldly pleasures. Yet, after 
all, what could be urged gainst her? Her duties, so 
called, she did not flagrantly outrage^ she never flirted 
beyond the boundaries pf decency, and her cavaliere ser~ 
volte for the season, was never admitted beyond the pub- 
lic courtesies, of his calling; she was a good mother, — 
for having procured the advantages of an excellent gover- 
ness and masters for her only daughter, she interfered not 
with their discipline: and a good wife, for though she 
knew that the days of Lord Fairford were devoted to the 
turf, and his nights to that dignified species of patrician 
gambling, inordinate whist, she neither remonstrated nor 
retaliated. Had he been infected by our recent epidemic 
in favour of the ring and rouge et noir, perhaps slie might 
have been less indulgent. But Lady Fairford felt that 
his were no vulgar vices, and did not allow them to influ- 
ence the calm contempt with which she had long regarded 
her lord — her lord, who was not her master. 

The Earl of Fairford was, it must be owned, a very 
dull,— but not, as the sequence generally runs, good sort 
of man. He was, in fact, a \ery bad sort of man; but 
transacted his vices and follies so methodically and with- 
al so very silently, that no one had any thing to ans^vver to 
his appeal to their reprobation. “ A bold-faced villain,’’ 
but neither ‘^fine ” nor “gay;” his licentiousness was as 
sullen _as the remorse of others; he loved wine like a sot, 
and play like a black-leg. Like Savage, he exulted ia 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


17 


tracing the failings of his character to the infamy of his 
parents. It is true, 


“ no mother’s care 

Sheltered his infant innocence with prayer;!’ 

his father, abandoned by the guilty wife who had be- 
queathed him only this ill-omened pledge of her marriage 
vow, vented upon the unhappy changeling all the bitter- 
ness of his own wounded feelings. Repulsed at home, 
unfitted to conciliate favour abroad, the young Ishmael 
grew up in morose hostility with his kind. He married 
Lady Ormleen chiefly to mark his animosity towards 
Claudius Dalrymple, the offspring of his mother’s illicit 
love; and afterwards shunned and detested her, as an ac- 
tive disciple of the abominable heresy which had mainly 
contributed to render himself an orphan. “ Lady Fair- 
ford is a woman of fashion,” he would say, in reply to 
those who wondered to see him xonsume his nights at his 
club, and his days with his stud. have no taste for 
tinsel and buckram; and there is room enough in the 
world for both of us, without jostling.” 

There was, indeed, room enough in the world fort)oth 
of them; there was room enough even in. their mansion on 
the Terrace in Piccadilly. No two persons who despised 
each other so sincerely ever lived on a more respectable 
footing of mutual contempt. Tliey sat at the same table 
whenever it was necessary their board should be devoted 
to the rites of hospitality, appeared at the drawing toge- 
ther, and generally took their departure from town to 
Fairford Castle oi* Maitland Hill on the same day. Lady 
Fairford was far too well-bred to indulge in domestic 
squabbles. She had - never been guilty of quarrelling 
with any one in her life; and it would have b^en strange 
enough to commence with her own husband, whom “ she 
had never loved enough to hate,” and who interfered so 
little with her own pursuits and proceedings. Once, in- 
deed, — for one five minutes of her married life, — she 
heartily detested Lord, Fairfortl, and with difficulty re- 
frained from telling him so. It was when, after perusing 
Sir Horatio Nelson’s despatch, proclaiming the triumph 
of his half-brother — whole-enemy — Sir Claudius Dalrym- 
ple, he suddenly burst forth into a rhapsody of maniacal 
execration. It was not, however, a glow of enthusiasm 

2 * 


18 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


in favour of her former lover which so kindled the enmitj' 
of Geraldine; — it was that a husband of hers should sw'ear 
so like a stable-boj. 

The quick impulse of her wrath was not unmarked by 
the man whom it secretly qualified' as a brute. Attri- 
buting her undisguised aversion from himself to a linger- 
ing preference of the hated individual who had been the 
innocent bane of all his happiness, Lord Fairford could 
scarcely repress the malignant fury with which he soon 
beheld Sir Claudius Dalrymple adored by his country, 
and welcomed by his king. What availed it to him that 
Court Ormleen and its peeress were his own, if, indeed, 
she secretly regretted her precipitate refusal of one who 
had made such rapid strides from ignominy to honour? 
What availed it to /«m, that he had inflicted a wound of 
unspeakable anguish upon his n^other’s detested son, since 
the. mother of his child cherished an insulting attachment 
for her deserted lover? He promised himself to watch 
them narrowly. Dalrymple was now an idol among those 
frivolous circles of which Lady Fairford was the distin- 
guished ornament; and his lordship was prepared to de- 
tect the first symptom of intelligence or familiarity be** 
tween them. For full two months he dragged his ungainly 
person from party to party, and exhibited his lurid visage 
like the copper-coloured sun of a London October, in 
many a ball-room, standing insulated and sullen amid the 
gaudy crow'd. 

But his alarips were quite superfluous. The morphine 
of high fashion had exercised its torporific influence on 
the heart ol the fine lady. Her pulse did not vary half 
so much when she found herself seafod beside the lover 
of her youth, as it would have done on a remote suspicion 
that Lady Granby’s feathers were half an inch higher 
than her own. She was pleased, indeed, to find him 
'“somebody;” because she often felt mortified in remem- 
bering that the sole preference of hei* heart had been la*- 
Vished on a “ nobody.” Admiral Sir Claudius Dalrvm 
pie, hovyever, though a temporary lion in society and'^the 
darling of the sign-posts, was, by no means, invested with 
a sufficiently odoroussanctity of ton to interest her dan^ 
gerously in his favour. Although a hero and a K.B., she 
•observed with disgust that the manners of the gallant Ad- 
miral w'ere hardened and his complexion umbered by tea 
years of quarter-deck*. 


Uy grand daughter. 


19 


But it was not alone his manners that were of firmer 
texture, — his heart was hardened, too; — and she was the 
cause of all. Betrayed by the early fervour of his feel- 
ings to a disappointment of such grievous extent, he had 
made it his business to fortify his bosom against farther 
exigences; — not against men and women, his sym* 
pathies were pure, and deep, and overflowing as ever,— 
but against lords and ladies. Instead of rating them at 
their^ real value, and dispassionately regarding their en- 
thusfasm in his favour, he chose to believe them all (with 
tile exception of his own beloved George and William) 
heartless as Lady Fairford^ and soulless as her lord. 
The earnest glance with which, after so long an absence# 
he regarded the woman who had trifled with his aft’ections, 
(a glance not to be misinterpreted even by the jealous fan- 
cy of her husband,) arose solely from curiosity. He 
wanted to discover whether the imp of pride had been 
cherished into a full-grown demon, — whether self-posses- 
sion had become insolence; but whatever the result of his 
observations, whether on working the problem he decided 
that the hard lines engraven by dissipation on her coun- 
tenance were somewhat deepened by care and vexation, 
did not transpire. The air of compassion that suddenly 
overspread his countenance, might, perhaps, proceed from 
a notion that the queen of fashion was less happy than she 
sought to appear. If so, the Knight of the Bath was mis- 
taken: — Lady Fairford had no heart to be unhappy with,. 


CHAPTER IV,. 

Fi^om loveless youth to unrespected age.— P ope. 

It did not surprise the fashionable peeress to learn from 
the puiilic prints, in the course of the following year, 
that Rear Admiral Sir Claudius Dalrymple had united 
himself, in some little shabby village in Clydesdale, to a 
Miss Janet Sinclair. It mattered little whom lie ijiarried 
now. He was forty in age, fifty in appearance, and had 
•acquired the undistinguished look peculiar to the dowdy 
bum-drum circle of the Inverarie family. 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTEK. 


20 - 


But it was a matter of considerable amazement to her 
to observe, at one of the drawing-rooms of the season, that 
the woman presented by Lady Inverarie, and most gra- 
ciously received by her Majesty as bride to the hero of 
Martinique and Ushant, boasted one of the highest or- 
der of fine formsj” — that she was graceful and elegant be- 
yond the competition of any among the handmaidens of 
Fashion, and tliat her manners and voice were ingratiating 
to a degree, and in a way which the influence of that far- 
thingaled and furbaloed goddess too often extinguishes. 
It was evident that the new Lady Dalrymple might have 
been admired as much as she pleased j but it was no less 
evident tliat it pleased her only to be admired by her 
husband^ People chose, however, to bestow their gra- 
tuitous and unsolicited interest on the beautiful and unas- 
suming stranger; and when Sir Claudius was shortly af- 
Iierwards appointed second in command, to share 

Of Nelson and the North 

The glorious day’s renown,” — 

the anxieties of the young and lovely Lady Dalrymple 
were honoured with such universal sympathy as Lady 
Fairford found was not to be quizzed into nothingness 
through her supercilious eye-glass. 

Nor were those fatal ten years of juniority which en- 
sured to her rival a brow so much more fair, a cheek so 
much more softly rounded than her own, the- sole advan- 
tage possessed by the wife of Sir Claudius over his former- 
love. Janet was one of the gentlest ot' human beings. A 
creature of the shade, — the peaceful tenour of her obscure 
life had never been ruffled by the jealousies and envyino-s 
and strifes which calcine the constitutions of the Fair of 

May Fair. We know that the Valais has its goitres, 

the Belgic frontier its “ death’s head of Ypres,”— St. Gil- 
les its endemic maniacs, — and other insalubrious spots 
their characteristic disorders and ugliness. The most 
eminent of our light novelists has depicted with great suc- 
cess “the hard parboiled look of fashion” characteristic 
of an A1 mack’s belle. But neither he nor any other 
chronicler of fashionable small beer (that flattest of beve- 
rages, which the reading public so greedily yet so grumb- 
JingW drams to the dregs,) has ever analyzed the hiero- 
iglyphms of the occult science of worldliness; which have 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


23 


their only permanent inscription among the wrinkles of a 
well-worn dowager, and may be traced in their first faint 
shadowing on the hollow brow of many a fading beauty. 
Pope thought fit to imprison his rebellious gnomes in a 
bodkin’s eye, and immerse them in cups of bitter washes; 
but had the graceful world of his creation admitted a real- 
ly malignant sprite, the caustic poet should have chained 
it (like Prometheus to his rock) to the rouged, scornful, 
attenuated, dissipation-seethed clieek of an habitual wo- 
man of fashion. 

Lady Fairford was scarcely seven and thirty when her 
daughter Lady Gertrude Wildenham was brought forth 
from the school-room into the daylight of the beau mondei 
yet no one dreamed of longer defining her as a pretty wo- 
man. Elegant and distinguished indeed she still was; 
more so perhaps than ever. The great world pronounced 
her manners perfect. Like the pirouette or entrechat of 
an opera^ dancer, her well practised graces had acquired 
a degree of mechanical precision, leaving all chance of 
failure out of the question. Her mode of presiding over 
the festivities of her country-house, was an accomplish- 
ment queted as combining the ease and sprightliness of 
old Paris with the retenu and refinement of modern Lon- 
don; and the illustrious host of Carlton House ha<l been 
heard to declare, that “ he was delighted to visit Lord and 
Lady Fairford in the country or at their house in Picca- 
dilly, but that he could not presume to invite them in re- 
turn.” 

But even triumphs such as these, did not redeem her 
from a certain angularization that ill became her lofty per- 
son. No cosmetic would fill out the wasted symmetry of 
her skinny arms; her Grecian nose acquired a shrewish 
sharpness; her lips, so often compressed by the irritations 
of an unamiable disposition, lost their rich hue and out- 
line of Cupid’s bow. Her eyes, dimmed by the blaze of 
illuminated fetes, grew red and inexpressive; a yellow 
hue surrounded her mouth; a livid tint lurked beneath 
her hollow eyes; the pearls between her parted lips were 
tesselated with an admixture of anti- corrosive mineral;” 
while 

«not Rowland nor Kalydor — no! 

Nor all the searching sirups of the East 

Could ever med’eme her to that sweet” * 


22 


MY GRAND-DATIGHTER. 


complexion, which was gone with its roses for ever and 
ever. It was the standard of comparison unconsciously 
raised by the fair and gentle Lady Dalrymple, which first 
planted the perturbed Geraldine before her looking-glass,^ 
to shudder at the defeatures of time revealed in that self- 
investigation 5 and determined her to repair the injury 
and invest herself in new charms, not by the cultivation 
of a better spirit or more intellectual fascinations, but by 
a sedulous trial of all tlie lotions, abstergent or emollient, 
which ever ensured a villa and a barouche to an adver- 
tising perfumer. The locks once flowing, which Time 
had now so ruthlessly thinned, were to be cultured with 
bear’s grease; — her teeth, though few and far between, 
were to be stripped by an influx of patent dentifrices of 
their last armour of enamel; — Mesdames Lebrun and Du- 
pin were to be admitted to morning* rehearsals of their 
^frippery arts; — while Constable was despatched to the 
British Museum, to hunt out prototypes of antique settings 
for the Ormleen Jewels among the effigies of Anne Boleyn 
or Henrietta Maria. Lady Fairford was determined that, 
if no longer the loveliest, she would at least be the best- 
dressed peeress at the Court of Queen Charlotte. 

Fortunately for Lady Gertrude, her mother had too 
much worldly wisdom — which, after all, is better than ab- 
solute folly — to entertain the slightest jealousy of her at- 
tractions. Lady Fairford was well aware that although 
the tribe of Browns and Smiths have the enviable privilege 
of sinking a year or two of their age, s/ie, whose birth and 
parentage were heraldic property, was too unsparingly 
dated in the public eye to profit by any such manoeuvre. 
A reference to the peerage would suffice to prove her 
seven and thirty; and it therefore became her policy not 
to appear younger than, but young of her age. Lady 
Gertrude’s budding beauty, if properly turned to account, 
would naturally ensure a general exclamation that Lady 
Fairford was a wonderful woman to be the mother of a 
grown-up daughter. Nor, indeed, was she personally in- 
different to the triumphs of the young beauty. If not 
tenderly and femininely attached to her child-, she was 
proud of her; if not inspired by a mother’s desire that 
Gertrude should acquire solid principles and exhibit esti- 
mable qualities, she was eager that the little heiress of so 
many distinctions should be the best dancer, the best mu- 
sician, the best-bred debutante of the season; and regard- 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTEl?. 


SS 

ed her daughter, much as she regarded her diamonds or 
her picture-gallery, as an adjunct of her state. It would 
have been a dreadful catastrophe had the only child of the 
beautiful Lady Fairford been a fright ora fool; and as, 
fortunately, the Lady Gertrude Wildenham proved wor- 
thy of a portrait by Lawrence, and a bust by Nollekens, 
while \yiUiam Spencer rendered her the heroine of a few 
stanzas full of butterflies’ wings and hyacinthine locks, 
she soon began to interest herself warmly in the sensation 
produced by the juvenile goddess. 

It never entered her head to feel anxious respecting 
the establishment in life of so fair a creature — so eminent 
a favourite of fortune. Lady Gertrude Wildenham — the 
future Lady Ormleen — the future possessor of thirty thou- 
sand per annum — the future patroness — the future pro- 
prietress of Maitland Hill with its paraphernalia of plarte 
and state, French cooks and Italian confectioners, hunt- 
ers, -and hounds, and all other superfluities which make 
glad the heart of man, — had only to look around her and 
select from among the Dukes and. Marquesses of the land, 
a partner worthy to share her canopy and coronet. 

“May Fair was all before her where to choose 
Her place of rest^’^ 

and Lady Fairford never puzzled herself to inquire whe- 
ther Providence would vouchsafe to be her guide. 

Lady Gertrude had been so excellently trained in the 
way she should go, that her mother seldom found it ne- 
cessary to trouble her with admonitions. Her manners 
were so extremely graceful and pleasing, that — although 
something wanting in dignity — the Countess judged it 
better to leave them as they were. All that was 
wanting would be supplied by knowledge of the worlds 
and though at present she was fonder of study, and 
in some points more serious than suited the habits 
of Piccadilly and the Castle, those failings would pro- 
bably vanish to make way for the increase of self- 
assumption anticipated by her lady-mother. from the in- 
fluence of fashionable homage. It was, therefore, only 
necessary to qualify her views by a few occasional hints, 

such as “ The ugly man with red hair I presented to 

you last night for the supper-dances was Lord Kidder- 
minster, the Duke of Berwick’s son. They have the 


to GRAND-DAUGHTE^. 


^4 

finest place in the north of England; and I have seen the 
Duchess’s, hoop completely powdered with diamonds. 
The Richmond necklace is perhaps finer; but the general 
effect of the Berwick jewels is the noblest thing of the 
kind in England;” Or, ‘"‘Do not dance so often with Lord 
Robert Wynge; for I am assured the Marchioness of Clan- 
henry is in a very declining state, and the Marquis is a 
man Very likely to marry again. Lord Robert is well 
aware of this; and I am rather surprised he should con- 
tinue to put himself so forward.” 

Lord Fairford, mean while, said nothing; he kept si- 
lence even from bad words, which formed a considerable 
portion of his dialogue when the spirit of Curapoa did 
move him to speak. He cared very little for his daugh- 
ter — having daughters elsewhere more congenial with 
liis tone of mind; and the utmost stretch of his paternal 
affection was demonstrated in the act of riding down one 
day to Rotten Row, to admire Lady Gertrude’s mode of 
managing a bay mare which had been broke for her use. 
His head-groom informed him that “ my lady passed for 
one of the best ’oss-women in Lon’on;” and for half a 
second he forgot that she was daughter to the proud, cold, 
scornful Geraldine of Court Ormleen, and felt proud that 
she should bear his name. In spite of his boorish insensi- 
bility, Lady Gertrude often strove to propitiate him by 
such little offices of kindness as he would accept; and 
once when she inquired with tenderness after a fall he 
had received in hunting, he was startled into observing, 
while he patted her on the head with almost as much 
kindness as his favourite setter, — “Gertrude! I believe 
after all, as times go, you are a good girl. Don’t let them 
make a fool of you, — don’t let them make worse of you. 
You will gain nothing by despising either your father or 
your husband. Marry an honest man, child! — and 
prove a better wife, and a better Christian than your 
mother!”— 

“ An ox once spoke, as learned Uiert deliver;” 

but certainly" not more to the purpose than the taciturn 
Earl of Fairford. His daughter pondered gravely over 
his words; — thought of them again and again when her 
lady mother proposed A. B. C. or D. to her acceptance) 
—and still more when an “ honest man,” who was na 


HY GRAND-DXtJGHTER. 


25 


iiord proposed himself. Eagerly did she press upon the 
attention of Lady Fairford the high endowment^i of Mr. 
Cunynghame, his strong understanding and amiable cha- 
racter. Alasl he might have boasted the genius of Bacon 
•and the virtues of Sir Thomas More, and her ladyship’s 
reply would have been still the same, Mr. Cunynghame 
was a man of no standing in society, — the younger son of 
a Scotch banker, — a person incapable of making a figure 
in the fashionable world. He had been pressed on Lord 
Fairford’s acceptance for one of his northern boroughs by 
Mr. Pitt, as an obscure young man of wonderful abilities^ 
and honoured by the notice of the Earl, on the discovery 
that his family had a law plea of twenty years’ duration 
with Lord Inverarie. A frequent visiter at Fairford Cas- 
tle, Lady Gertrude had bestowed considerable interest on 
the young member whose speeches now attracted univer- 
sal attention; and whose sober rational demeanour was so 
difterent from that of the bucks and bloods, the barouche 
driving lords and steeples chasing baronets of that ob- 
streperous day. Interest ripened into love — such love as 
soon begets a correspondent attachment. Trembling at 
his own presumption, Herbert Cunynghame at length 
tendered his heart and hand (for he had little more at his 
own disposal) to the acceptance of the future peeress: — 
"trembling at hers, Gertrude ventured to assure her mo- 
ther that she preferred the younger son of a Glasgow 
banker to all the Dukes and Marquesses of the peerage 
of the United kingdom. 

Lady Fairford was too much amazed for words. At 
first she was inclined to treat the business as a jest; but 
Lady Gertrude’s composed demeanour soon convinced 
her she was in earnest. She next represented to her that 
neither the Earl nor herself would ever accede to such a 
marriage, nor grant her the means of subsistence with her 
plebeian lover; — that a union under such circumstances 
must ensure the ruin of Mr. Cubynghame; — and that it was 
her duty, at least, to wait the attainment of her majority. 
Lady Gertrude, in the hope of softening her mother’s 
prejudices during the interim, readily acceded to this 
proposal of delay, which was suggested by Lady Fairford 
only that it might be employed in practical lessons of 
the miseries of unequal marriages, and the joys of pros- 
perity. 

But all would not do. On the day succeeding her 
VoL. II. 3 


m 


MY GllAND-DAUGHTEK. 


twenty-first birth-day, Lady Gertrude, in presence of her 
father, bestowed herself a-nd her expectations upon Her- 
bert Cunynghame, Esq., M. P. ; Lord Fairford having 
agreed to allow him three thousand a-year during his life- 
time, and the indignant Geraldine protesting that sh^ 
would not only allow them nothing at all during hers, but 
would live for another half century only to keep Lady 
Gertrude Cunynghame out of the enjoyment of her here^ 
ditary title and estates. It was, however, some comfort 
(hat the family dissensions gracing this disproportionate 
alliance, aSbrded her an excuse for a positive and perma- 
nent separation from her lord. Her last act, in quitting 
Fairford Castle for ever, was to forbid the young couple 
her presence^ reminding her daughter that although Lord 
F’s. perverse liberality might afford them present means 
of support, his precarious health and incapability to alien- 
ate an acre of land from the heir male, might very shortly 
leave them destitute, — when they would have to rue their 
short-sighted precipitancy. 

This taunt, this threat, she thought would call forth a 
frightful thorn among the bridal roses she so longed to 
wither. But it only served to teach the young couple 
prudence; and to hint the necessity of laying aside for 
the threatened winter, a portion of their summer store. 
Mr. Cunynghame ensured the life of his father^n-law for 
thirty thousand pounds; and became the happiest husband 
of the happiest wife in England with the residue of Lord 
Fairford’s annuity. , 

Lady Fairford’s threat of alienating herself for ever from 
their society, was in Mr. Cunynghame’s opinion a highly 
gratifying circumstance; his only demur m seeking the 
hand of the lovely Lady Gertrude having arisen from his 
horror of the influence of such a mother-in-law. Above 
all things, he dreaded for his wife the counsels of a heart* 
less woman of fashion. 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


27 . 


CHAPTER V. 


See how the woild its veteran rewards! — Pope. 

Such was the youth and maturity of the Dowager Lady 
Fairford, whom we have all beheld, in her age, flitting 
among the coteries of May Fair a haughty, high-bred, 
phantom of former fashion^ — such the fruits of an educa- 
tion in the school of worldly wisdom, and of a marriage 
dictated by sordid ambition! 

However unstable in higher points of morality, the 
Countess very rigidly kept her word with regard to her 
daughter j nor, indeed, had she much inducement to swerve 
from her purpose. Her associates belonged chiefly to 
those flighty circles, where no pcrson^atFects an interest in 
any thing not immediately connected with their own gra- 
tification, and where no one cared either for the rupture 
or its consequences; while the truer friends of Lady Ger- 
trude, seeing her so happy in her modest household and 
cheerful home, would not even instigate a reconciliation 
likely to plunge her anew into the midst of those perilous 
ordeals, from whence she had escaped uninjured. Mr. 
Ciinynghame continued to distinguish himself in Parlia- 
ment, acquiring at once the admiration and respect of the 
country; and when, after the expiration of six years, and 
the birth of Lady Gertrude’s five diildren. Lord Fair- 
ford did really fulfil the earnest desires of his noble con- 
sort, and betake himself to the vaults of Fairford, it was 
a gazette very favourably received by his Majesty’s lieges, 
which compelled the Right lion. Herbert Cunynghame to 
accept the Chiltern flundreds, on his appointment to the 
vacant government of the island of Ceylon. Thirty thou- 
sand pounds formed a sorry provision for one destined 
eventually to succeed to an annual income of similar 
amount; and the husband of Lady Gertrude (too reason- 
able a being to aftect an oversight ot the ordinary casual- 
ties of human life) felt that his incapability to do justice 
to his younger children, in the e ent of Lady Fairford ’s- 


28 


MY GRAND DAUGHTER. 


outliving her daughter, foioade him to decline so advan- 
tageous an honour. 

Previous to her embarkation, his wife addressed an- 
humble, though not a hypocritically penitent epistle to the 
Peeress of Court Ormleen, imploring a parting interview. 
Nor could it have been the terms of the request which 
gave umbrage to the unnatural mother; for the letter was 
instantly returned unopened! 

Those, however, who were in the habit of intimate as- 
sociation with Lady Fairford, clearly discerned that she 
would noidiave been sorry to find the petition renewed: — 

“ So absolute she seemed, and in herself complete ” — 

so long had she been accustomed to unlimited monarchy^ 
that she considered it Lady Gertrude Cunynghame’s duty 
to approach her with the deference exacted by an Eastern 
Prince or Italian shrine; and felt satisfied that a due re- 
gard for the interests of her own children ought to deter- 
mine any mother and daughter of a right way of thinking, 
to overlook all former slights offered to herself or her hus- 
band. Unluckily, at that period of universal belligerence, 
frigates were not as now at the disposal of every Right 
Reverend or K.C.B., despatched beyond the line to be 
put out of his pain by the miasma of some oriental settle- 
ment. The sailing of the India fieet was annual and pe- 
remptory; and Lady Gertrude was not only engrossed by 
the onerous labours of preparing her little family for sa 
long a voyage in so short a time, but felt it her duty to 
convey them to Glasgow previous to their departure, to 
receive the parting benediction of the aged parents of her 
own beloved Herbert, and the affectionate farewell of his 
only sister, Mrs. Macfarlane. No time remained, there- 
fore, for a protracted negotiation with Lady Fairford, 
through the medium of friends, or friends’ friends; and, 
on reaching the island of Ceylon, the only regret expe- 
rienced by the wife of the new Governor arose from the 
remembrance of having been obliged to quit her native 
country unsanctioned by the forgiveness of her surviving 
parent. Lady Fairford was, however, still in the prime 
of life; and Gertrude consoled herself with the idea that 
absence would do wonders towards a reconciliation, and, 
that on her return to England, in the course of eight or 
ten years, her mother’s arms would open to receive her» 


MV GRAND-DAUGHTER 


20 


Other people thought otherwise: for, soon after Herbert r 
Cunynghame’s inauguration into his new dignities (wlien 
extracts from the Colombo Gazette had duly illuminated 
the London journals with an account of the firing of guns, 
and addresses by the inhabitants of the Cingalese pro- 
vinces, in honour of his arrival.) a certain Mrs. Maitland, 
— a widow, — a distant relative of her late father, — pro- 
fited by a temporary derangement of Lady Fairford’s 
health, to insinuate herself as a permanent visiter into the 
mansion in Piccadilly. Whether suffering only from the 
enervation consequent on a long career of London vigils, 
or whether secretly disturbed by the unexpected departure 
of her daughter, (whom she had gratified herself with the 
hope of beholding, at Lord Fairford^s death, reduced to 
the verge of ruin, and abjectly submitting to her imperious 
terms of reconciliation,) it is certain that she was glad to 
secure in Mrs. Maitland an untireable auditress of her 
invectives against unequal marriages, — forfeiture of caster 
— and rebellion against the prejudices of society: w'hile 
Mrs. Maitland liaving found it expedient to establish her- 
self as a souffre douleur in the family of her opulent rela- 
tive, did not hesitate to afford an unfailing echo to these 
haughty maxims and contemptuous innuendoes. The 
handsome widow had two portionless girls, training at a 
fashionable boarding-school for the matrimonial profession^ 
and was well aware that they could not be more boldly 
thrust upon the notice of society, than by the still distin- 
guished and ever prosperous Lady Fairtord. Under these 
expectations, Mrs. Maitland, whose address, and ai?’, and 
position placed her far above the vocation of the hireling 
toady, contrived to divert the attention of the ^Countess 
from her own pains and aches, by incessantly exasperating 
her mind against the crimes and misdemeanors of Lady 
Gertrude Cunynghame; till, at length, on receiving no- 
tice from the India House of the arrival of a magnificent 
set of sandal-wood furniture, carved with the family arms, 
and consigned to her by the lady of his Excellency, the 
Governor of Ceylon, Lady Fairford actually dictated to 
Mrs. Maitland an ordet that the costly gift should be sold 
to defray its expenses, or despatched back to Colombo . 
bv the next outward-bound fleet. 

‘ This harsh and unconrteous measure was instigated by 
Mrs. Maitland, chiefly for the gratification of that malice 
which regarded the daughter of her patroness, (although a 

S* 


30 


MY GRAND DAUGHTER. 


discarded daughter,) as a rival near the throne. But it 
was for the gratification of her curiosity and love of plea- 
sure, that she soon afterwards persuaded Lady Fairford 
to join the rush of pilgrims to Notre Dame, when the pa- 
cification of Europe suddenly threw open the continent to 
the ten thousand of our insolvent or squandering fellow- 
countrymen who resolved on instant emigration. Already 
wearied to satiety by the routine of London life, a foreign 
tour promised a thousand excitements to the restless, dis- 
contented, rebellious child of fortune; and dropping gold 
on her road (as if, like Hop o’my Thumb with his pebbles, 
to secure a clew. for her return,) the Countess Dowager, of 
Fairford, and suite took their departure for Paris. The 
whips of Quillacq’s postillions could not have cracked 
louder for a Pacha with three tails, than they did for the 
English Peeress with her three travelling carriages. 

The good city of Paris, Just emancipated from the horde 
of Goths and Vandals by whose iron heels it had been al- 
most stamped into dust, was as yet unfamiliarized with 
the aspect and travelling carriages of British peeresses. 
After a hearty laugh at her ladyship’s small bonnet and 
large waist, and the still more diminutive bonnet and more 
ample waist of Mrs. Maitland, they readily consented to 
do homage to a Miladi qui possedait un million de rentes^, 
et des seigneuries a ne point compter;^’ and who was, 
moreover, distinguished by the friendship of the influential, 
and potential, and popular Madame de CaselrU’ Lady 
Fairford’s diamonds, which were as well known in May 
Fair as the stone supporters on the gate at Chesterfield 
House, w’ere new to the wonder of the Chaussee d' Antin; 
her address exhibited too much of the vieille tour not to 
be appreciated in a city where manners make the woman 
as well as the man; and above all, Fairford Castle had 
been rendered, by her ostentatious patronage at the period 
of the Revolution, a refuge for the destitute French no- 
blesse and starving princes. Any one of these adva\itages 
would have been sufficient to decide her succes de societe, 
in the capricious but calculating capital of France. United, 
they did wonders; and Madame la Comtesse de Ferefure, 
installed for a year or two in the hotel of a Bonapartean 
Marshal, with a suite of state apartments gorgeous with 
the spoil and burglary of a dozen kingdoms, became a far 
greater personage than she had ever found herself at Fair- 
ford Castle, or in her circumscribed drawing-room tripar- 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTEK, 


31 


tlte in Piccadilly. It was an amusement for a week to 
sail along her magnificent galleries, and trace the progress 
Qf Napoleon’s campaigns in the Correggio, offered as a 
bribe by the Duke of Modena; — the Salvator, filched from 
a superannuated Cardinal; — the antique bronzes, taken 
at or from Caserta; — the Murillos, which a Spanish con- 
vent had been reduced to flames to render houseless; — 
and the Dresden vases, bullied out of a paralytic Silesian 
Dowager. 

But during the ensuing weeks Madame de Ferefureet 
sa belle parente found much better diversion for their lei- 
sure. By the re-feoffment of the Faubourg St. Germain 
with those Duchesses and Princesses of the ancient re- 
gime whom the guillotine and the Pere Elise had spared, 
the Countess found herself established in an atmosphere 
perfectly congenial to her feelings; and by her own in- 
stalment as the leading favourite of the Chateau, she 
was instantaneusly canonized as the idol of the aristocra- 
tic votaries whose worship was so precious in her eyes. 
Great as is the influence of wealth in our own metropolis, 
it is far greater in Paris; where a wider field of selfish en- 
joyment lies at the purchase of its possessor. With u&, 
even when combined with the distinctions of rank, opu- 
lence serves only to elevate the pedestal from which the 
lordly Croesus looks down upon mankind: while our Gal- 
lic neighbours, more active in the search of personal grati- 
fication, gather in crowds around the pedestal, swelling his 
importance by their identification with his pursuits and 
pleasures. In Piccadilly, Lady Fairfbrd was only one of 
the giants,, stalking pompously and of her own accord in the 
solemn pageantry of London representation; — in the Rue 
Montblanc, she was seated on a golden car, and impelled 
forward (like Guido’s Aurora) amid a throng of dancing 
Hours and rosy Nymphs. Her progress was an ovation. 
After clinging like a bat to the dark ponderous rafters of 
Fairfold Castle for a series of tedious winters, she sudden- 
ly found herself hovering like a butterfly over a parterre 
of the gayest flowers of summer. 

It was lucky for the interests of Lady Gertrude and her 
five children, that the Countess was not a few years 
younger; or rather — for at Paris no woman is too old to be 
youn^— that her weakness was of the head, rather than of 
the heart. The pride and vanity of being so much the object 
of attention, afforded her sufficient motive ta devote her 


32 


MY GRANDDAUGHTER. 


mornings to tlie mantua-makers and milliners, — her even- 
ings to the grand monde. But she had nothing to gain by 
marriage under the existing impossibility of allying her- 
self with the blood royal: and as to personal predilections, 
her tepid passion in her teens for Claudius Dalrymple, 
formed the only irruption of her feelings upon record. If 
the beautiful Lady Fairford of five and twenty remained 
insensible to the constellation of Carlton House, with all 
its stars, the Lady Fairford of twice those years was very 
unlikely to lose her scoriated heart among the gouty cour- 
tiers of the gout Double neuf. Several toddling old Dukes 
were heard to protest that “ Madame de ferefure etait d'^un 
ton admirable et fort bien conservee;^’ but it was for ano- 
ther set of old women that this conversation was exercised. 
It was for the adoration of tlie Dowagers of the Faubourg,' 
the “ Comtesses d’Kscarbagnas,” that the veteran peeress 
now composed her face and ruffled her plumes. 

Mrs. Maitland, whose fair daughters were being 
“ finished ” in a fashionable pension of the Champs Ely- 
sees, contented herself^with shining in the gloriole of her 
noble friend; and never had the heartless pride of woman 
graced the halls of the Louvre with a more decided tri- 
umph, since the days of Madame de Maintenon. Lady 
Fairford’s splended Chateau in the neighbourhood of Paris 
exhibited all the lavish luxury of a fermier general, Witli- 
Talleyrand or Tajjeyrand’s master as the partner of her 
whist, Chateaubriand as the poet of her Album, Gerard 
as the illuminator of her scrap-book, Viotti as her chef 
d’orchestre, Biangini as her ballad singer, and Talma as 
the director of her private theatricals, la Comtesse Anglaise 
made war upon Time — keeping him at bay, like Pope’s 
Belinda, with the point of a golden bodkin." 


CHAPTER VI. 

Malheur a qni les dieux accorclent de longs jours ; 

Consume de doulours vers la fin de leur cours 
11 voil amour de Ini tout p6rir, tout changer ’ 

, Et a la race nonveUe se trouve etranger. ’ St, Lambert. 

Ten years of the “ certain, age ” of a mere woman of the 
world afford but a monotonous record for the amplification 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


as 

of the novelist. Without the shade of human passions, 
the light of human virtues to vary the surface, the picture 
of life becomes a blank; or is filled out with paltry details 
of selfish pain and frivolous pleasure, fatal to all gran- 
deur of design. The Countess Dowager grew older and ' 
uglier, but neither better nor wiser. Tired of the dissipa- 
tion of Paris, (or eclipsed by Madame de Cayla) she made 
the tour of Italy; and gloried in knowing that half a dozen 
capitals had now confirmed the fiat of her native country, 
that she was a woman of unexceptionable good breeding, 
and regal magnificence. Florence, Rome, and Naples 
concurred with the Faubourg in the opinion that her dia- 
monds were finer than those of any subject (out of Rus- 
sia;) — and that not a royal retinue of all Italy could vie 
in magnificence with her own. 

Mean while the roof of Court Ormleen gave way to the 
winds of heaven. Its carved gallery of black oak fell in 
when the Countess was lining her corridors at Monbijou 
with footcloths of crimson velvet, for the reception of the 
French princes; and the rats gnawed their way through 
the picture of her grandfather, the 17th and last Lord 
Ormleen, while she was giving an illuminated regatta, at 
Lucca, to the Grand Duke of'Tuscany! 

But Maitland Hill bore a far more heavy accusation 
against her hardness of heart. While its noble gardens 
sprang up into a wild luxuriance of bloom, — while the 
healthful sun beamed gladness on its green meadows, and 
the salubrious breezes wantoned in its woods, young Cun- 
ynghame, the only son of her only child, fell a sacrifice 
to the fervid climate of Ceylon: — her paternal hall stood 
tenantless, while their future inheritors were driven to 
seek a home -' — a grave — in a foreign land!— A few of the 
annual thousands lavished by the ostentatous Dowager in 
royal entertainments, would have warranted Lady Ger- 
trude and her amiable husband in completing the education 
of their family in their own beloved country ! 

Nor, however heartless and triumphant in her career, 
did the Countess manage to escape the vexations of life. 
She had originally adopted her poor relation as an inmate, 
with a view to her own convenience; holding out expecta- 
tions of future patronage to Floriana and Eliza Maitland, 
by way of better security over the services of her protegee. 
Whenever Mrs. Maitland relaxed in her attentions, grew 
hoarse while reading aloud, or pleaded a headach wliea 


34 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


there were letters or notes to be written, the Dowager be- 
gan to talk of making her will; or spoke of the splendid 
balls with which, if circumstances permitted^ she intended 
to grace the debut of the Misses Maitland. The crafty wi- 
dow accordingly resumed her obsequiousness, with a view 
to secure for her daughters, such an entree into society as 
might place them in the career of fortune; and, on Lady 
Fairford’s departure for Italy, actually procured them the 
benefit of seats in the ladies’ maids’ barouche, that they 
might complete at Naples that wonderful work of art, — 
— the superficial education commenced at Paris. 

It was on the ninth winter of Lady Fairford’s absence 
from England, and two years following that of young 
Herbert Cunynghame’s death, that her ladyship took pos- 
session of the splendid suite of rooms in the Piazzi di 
Spagna, which she had promised to render the scene of a 
course of fetes^ calculated to dazzle the whole College of 
Cardinals, in honour of the introduction of the two daugh- 
ters of Mrs. Maitland; and grateful, indeed, was the an- 
ticipation of her splendours to the self-important Dowager. 
Without the slightest interest in the welfare of either Flo- 
riana or Eliza Maitland, she was in hopes that tidings of 
the liberality of her patronage might reach Ceylon, to call 
forth the tardy repentance of her daughter; and, more- 
over, considered herself pledged to society that any mem- 
ber of her family whom she deigned to recognise, should 
form a good establishment on the strength of so illustrious 
a connexion. 

When, lo! just as the Miss Maitlands were drawn 
forth from their obscurity, and about to enter the market, 
—just when the ostentatious joys of patronage were dawn- 
ing on the Dowager,— it pleased a certain half-doting 
Lord Grampus, — a man making the gastronomic tour of 
Europe, eating his way from the “ lazy Scheldt ” to “ the 
wandering Po;” and, like FalstafF, “old, cold, withered, 
and of intolerable entrails,” — to fall in love with Mrs. 
Maitland. Having been seated by her side one day at 
dinner at the Hanoverian Ambassador’s, when his palate 
was exquisitely tickled with some tunny dressed with 
citron juice, a confusion arose in the vacuum which ouo-ht 
to have been filled with his mind, as to the source of his 
gratification. He was, by no means, sure that the flavour 
of the Mediterranean fish was not heightened by the con- 
versation of the handsome widow, his neighbour, who dis- 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


35 


coursed such excellent music touching made dislies and 
simple, and the whole philosophy of the frying-pan; — and 
lest he should lose sight of the only lady he had ever seen 
worthy to have been a cook, he tendered his coronet to 
her acceptance on the following day, and was rewarded 
with her fair hand on the following month. As he pressed 
it to his heart, it occurred to him that it wanted only a lit- 
tle stuffing in the palm, to be as white and tender as a 
sweetbread ! 

All this was wormwood to Lady Fairford. She could 
boast no share in the matchj she had been placed in the 
confidence neither of bride nor bridegroom. Her cunning 
relative knew her too well to trust the secret of her en- 
gagement with one who would probably oppose some vile 
counterplot to the scheme^ and kept the business a pro- 
found secret till the very eve of her nuptials. Lady 
Fairford scorned, however, to own herself outwitted. She 
never told the world she was angryj never boasted her- 
self to have been ill-used j but received Lord and Lady 
Grampus as graciously, and appeared as much enchanted 
with the match, as if its hero were a Welsh curate, and 
her beloved friend had the prospect of starvation before 
her eyes. In the idea that the bride and bridegroom 
would establish themselves at Rome for the remainder of 
the carnival. Lady Fairford took occasion to be ill, and 
compelled her courtly physician to issue a mandate order- 
ing her to Naples for change of air. She had no particu- 
lar tie or attraction to that gay city of Lazzaroni and 
Maccaroni; but any thing to escape the annoyance, of wit- 
nessing Lady Grampus’s inauguration into the aristocratic 
estate ! 

“ At least,” observed the unhappy Dowager, now re- 
duced to the solitary sovereignty of her travelling chariot* 
“ at least, I shall get rid of the chorus of absurd enthusi- 
asts who affect to rave of Miss Eliza’s beauty and Miss 
Floriana’s accomplishments. I really believe they fancy 
they are paying their court to me by an incessant quota- 
tion of the Maitlands. Blockheads!— as if all the world 
did not know that we have ten chances to one of pleasing 
people by addressing them with abuse of their nearest re^ 
latives!” 

Arrived at Naples, things were worse than ever* 
Scarcely had Lady Fairford settled herself as the centre 
of a coterie of primero-playing Principesse and Abbati* 


MY GRAND-DAUGtiTER. 


S6 

to whom her costly mode of living entitled her to expound 
both the law and her own grievances, when Lord and 
Lady Grampus, despitefully and with malice aforethought, 
made their appearance: installed themselves within view 
of her dwelling; and, instead of deigning to take offence 
in return for all they gave, displayed the most provoking 
determination to be on the best terms with their dear rela- 
tive. The Dowager was ready to expire with indignation 
on learning her promoted toady’s universal declaration 
that she had been induced to pass the remainder of the 
winter at Naples, by her anxiety to show some little kind- 
ness to an aged relative, whose temper was calculated 
to tire the patience of all who were not bound by the 
tie of consanguinity to the endurance of her caprices. 

Lady Grampus had, in fact, led too disagreeable a life 
not to profit eagerly by the change of her destinies. She 
could not afford to lose a single day’s enjoyment of the 
comforts and conveniences suddenly placed within her 
reach; and finding that Naples presented a promising 
market of English lordlings and heirs apparent, hastened 
thither to form an establishment on the footing she judgedi 
advantageous to the interests of her daughters. Her hos- 
pitality was inferior only to that of the Ambassador; her 
personal importance secondary to none. It was not, in- 
deed, that the bridegroom lordship’s income by any means 
rivalled that of the Dowager; but the mature bride had 
other sources of popularity. She had two daughters ca- 
pable of out-srniling, out-talking, out dancing, out-sing- 
ing all the smilers, talkers, dancers, and singers of Na- 
ples; and herself exhibited, though in the wane of her 
charms, one of the loveliest sunsets that ever glowed upon 
a ball room. Having been thought handsome even while 
only Mrs. Maitland and a hanger-on, she became a divi- 
nity as a peeress and the proprietress of a cook of un- 
blemished reputation; nor was it surprising that the united 
merits of cook, maitre-d’hotel, daughters, and mother, 
should command the allegiance of the Neapolitan coteries. 
Alceste himself did not unfold a finer vein of misanthro- 
py than poor Lady Fairford, on beholding the patrician 
crowd fly to feed their affection at the table of the gas- 
tronomic bridegroom. 

It would in truth have been better for the comfort of 
her declining years, had the Lady of Court Ormleen 


MY GRAND DAUGHTER* 


37 


turned her horses’ heads towards England on quitting 
Rome, instead of pursuing her way 

“Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,’^ 

towards a city where she was destined to a thousand un- 
anticipated mortifications; such as neither splendour of 
equipage nor establishment,— neither the excellence of 
her box at San Carlo, nor the distinction of her reception, 
at court, — could wholly obliterate. 

“ Have you seen much of the DalrympleS?” inquired 
the affectionate relative who had travelled from Rome to 
be her incubus, in the course of one of her first interviews 
with Lady Fairford. 

“What Dalrymples — The Duke and DuchevSS?” 

“Oh, no! the people who made themselves so popular 
at Naples a year or two ago, whom the Queen was so fond 
of, — and who gave such brilliant parties.” 

“Any relations to Lord Inverarie?” 

“I believe so; but Lord Dalrymple’s title is a crea- 
tion.” 

“ Lord Dalrymple? — You do not mean the Admiral?” 

“Exactly! — Lady Dalrymple, poor thing, being in a 
dreadful state of health, a frigate was given to her son 
expressly to bring her to Italy. She passed a year at Na- 
ples with all her family, and was perfectly adored here.” 

“Then why did she go away? — I am sure people did 
not trouble themselves about her in England. She had 
better have remained at Naples for the remainder of her 
days.” 

“And so she did. She died here.” 

“Claudius Dalrymple’s wife dead !” exclaimed Lady 
Fairford. “ He must have felt her loss severely.” 

“ He did — he does; for after passing the winter in 
strict retirement in Sicily, and the summer in cruising 
about the Mediterranean with his son, he returns hither, 
chiefly for the consolation of living where he last lived 
with his wife, and dying where she died.” 

“And his daughters?” 

“The eldest, Lady Napier, who presides over his 
house, is the widow of a naval officer. Helen, the young- 
est, is married to Sir Digby King, and is a charming 
creature. I thought you must have known Lord Dalrym- 
ple, he being so nearly connected with the late Lord Fair- 
VoL. II. 4 


58 


MY GRAND-DAtJGHTEn’. 


ford?” continued Lady Grampus, looking her former pa- 
troness maliciously in the face, for she was w'cll aware ot 
the exact state of their early connexion. 

“Yes! — I knew him^ — but his wife was one of thoise 
yea-nay people, for whom one never feels the slightest in- 
terest; and so we have managed to lose sight of each other, 
and I have seen nothing of the family for years.” 

“For whom one never feels! You speak of course 
impersonally, — for one person has felt and feels an inte- 
rest for poor Lady Dalrymple, rarely equalled in this ob- 
durate world! Her monument exists in the haggard coun^ 
tenance of her husband.” 

“Well — well,” — cried Lady Fairford, peevishly. “We' 
are at least secure from the disagreeable spectacle of such 
a memento mori. People of so much sensibility as this 
Dalrymple tribe, will of course avoid the contact of the 
crowd.” 

“ I trust you will frequently meet them at my house. 
The only son, Captain Dalrymple, is a great admirer of 
my girls.” 

It might be difficult to determine whether the words 
“ MY HOUSE,” in the lips of the quondam toady, or the 
announcement of Lord Dalrymple’s arrival at Naples and 
affliction as a widower, produced the more disagreeable 
impression on the Lady of Court Ormleen. 


CHAPTER VIL 


Her new-set jewels round her robe are plac’d ; 

Some in a brilliant buckle bind her w’aist. 

Some round her neck a circling light display, 

Some in her hair diffuse a trembling ray ; 

The silver knot o’eriooks the waving lace, 

And adds becoming beauties to her face. 

Gat. 


It was a grievous mortification to Lady Fairford, to ob- 
serve that Lady Grampus and her daughters were warmly 
welcomed in the highest circles of tn^e court and city of 
Naples; as well as in many a ^iddy scene of festivity, 
unsuitable to her age, her dignity, and position in the 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


S9 

^orld. She had no chance of talking them down, oc 
looking them down, or depreciating their popularity. 
Youth, beauty, and accomplishments afforded them a 
strong-hold from whence they could defy her ill-nature; 
and anxious as she was to mortify her rebel protegee, she 
at length found herself reluctantly compelled to join the 
chorus of her ladyship’s votaries. The inconveniences of 
a winter journey alone induced her to brave the annoy- 
ance of witnessing the triumphant debut of the. Misses 
Maitland; but she resolved to seize' the earliest opportu- 
nity of breaking through her foreign connexions, and re- 
turning to her native country. 

Mean while, and with feelings of ill-suppressed disgust. 
Lady Fairford prepared to attend a court gala, given on 
occasion of a royal birth day. All her splendours were to 
be exhibited; for it was evident that her sole chance of 
outshining the bride was through the medium of her fa- 
mily jewels. A robe of the richest velvet, adorned with 
costly sable, was selected as accordant with her years; and 
strings, and bandeaux, and aigrettes of costly diamonds, 
adorned her withered throat and plumed toque. Sailing 
through the suite of regal apartments, escorted by her lean 
yellow patitOy Prince Ludovico Aspradelvallc, and an 
Englishman named Sir Holofernes Rodomont, (much com- 
mended by the Abbate Mai to her ladyship’s. good dinners, 
as a very rising young man,) she had full faith in the as- 
surance of her old beau and her favourite waiting-maid that 
she was still the finest woman in Naples, and ten years 
younger in appearance than the presumptuous lady of Lord 
Grampus; and it was no small gratification to her, when 
the obnoxious party entered the presence, that they should 
find her honoured with a seat at a royal card-table, while 
they, after a cold and careless greeting, were obliged to 
mingle with the throng. 

Looking up from the interesting confusion of spades,' 
diamonds, clubs, and hearts, on which her attention had 
been riveted, the Countess raised her diamond eye-glass 
to reconnoitre the Grampus group, stripped by the pre- 
sence of majesty of all their factitious pride of fashion; 
when, just as she was preparing to exterminate the bride 
by a patronizing bow, her eye was caught by a spectacle, 
causing her hollow heart to thrill and the frigid current of 
her blood to wax hot within her. For the first time during 
thirty years, a genuine blush overspread her world-worn 


40 


MY GRAND DAUGHTER. 


face ! Despite the royal partner, who marked her bewil- 
derment with indignation, and the odd trick which waited 
her return to reason, she sat with her eyes fixed (the dia- 
mond eye-glass no longer needful to assist her myopic vi- 
sion) on a figure which had entered, and was departing 
with the Grampus train. Her breath grew short;-— dreams 
of the past thronged upon her mind. She was once more 
Geraldine Lady Ormleen; no longer the wife or widovv of 
the sullen Earl of Fairford, but the daughter of Sir Patrick 
Maitland: — the lover of her youth was before her! — 

But no!— On the head or the veteran Dalrymple the 
snows of sixty years must now be lying; — on his cheek, 
time must have ploughed its accustomed furrows, even be- 
fore domestic affliction did its part in the work of devas- 
tation: — while the figure which so captivated her attention 
was bright with the graceful dignity of early manhood. It 
contained the promise not the wreck, of a hero! Unless 
she^ too, had supernatu rally retrograded through forty 
years of her ill-spent life, it could not be Claudius Dal- 
rymple who stood before her. 

Yet it was Claudius! Claudius the second, — Claudius, 
the son of Claudius; — not of the poor despised brother of 
Lord Fairford, but of the wealthy Lord Dalrymple. The 
illustrious condition of the personages among whom she 
was placed, forebade the Dowager to investigate the af- 
fair by interrogation; but having been released from her 
dignified durance towards the close of the evening, she 
sailed into the ball-room, and had no difflculty in recog- 
nising the mysterious unknown as the object of Lady 
Grampus’s bland adulation, and in ascertaining his name 
and nature from her ladyship’s lord. 

“Fine young man!” cried his lordship, in reply to 
Lady Fairford’s roundabout inquiries. “Lady Grampus 
is of opinion he has taken a fancy to her youngest daughter; 
and nothing would gratify me more than such an alliance 
for my daughter-in-law. Between ourselves. Lady Fair- 
ford, there is the best black-cock on Lord Dalrymple’s 
moors of any in Scotland; and the Captain himself assured 
me that in a tarn of his mother’s estate in the Highlands, 
are to be found those identical delicate lake trout, which 
many people fancy are only met with in the Tyrolian and 
Styrian lakes. — Your ladyship has no conception what 
they are when eaten with caper sauce !” 

And does Lord Dalrymple favour the connexion? 1 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. ' 


41 


understand he derives a magnificent property from his late 
wife, whom he affected, you know, to marry for love; 
and who proved to be the niece and heiress of some vul- 
gar old Bombay agent who advertised for his relations. 
He will probably expect much in a wife for his eldest 
son.” 

“Oh! as to Lord Dalrymple, the less we say about' 
him the better. A very singular man, Lady Fairford! — 
a person of a very strange way of thinking. I remember 
dining with him in London, in Lady Dalrymple’s time, 
and there was on the table — but it is useless to talk of it 
now ! — If people of a certain rank are sometimes tempted 
to outrage decency in so gross a manner, perhaps the best 
thing one can do is to forget it.” 

“Decency?” — interrupted the Dowager, aghast. 

“Decency!” — persisted his lordship, with an air of 
nausea. “ 1 cannot speak in milder terms of a roasted 
hind-quarter of lamb !” 

His lordship’s look of loathing did not, however, equal 
that of Lady Fairford, as she proceeded to note the manoeu- 
vres practised by the mother of Floriana and Eliza, to en- 
tangle Claudius Claudison. She, who was so familiarly 
acquainted with the whole catalogue of Maitland smiles, 
could readily detect tlfe super-saccharine sweetness of 
countenance, assumed in honour of the inheritor of the gal- 
lant admiral’s coronet, and old Sinclair’s hundreds of thou- 
sands. She saw him stand between the Misses Maitland, 
like Garrick between tragedy and comedy, — now inclining 
towards the brilliant vivacity of'^Floriana, now towards the 
soft sensibility of the blue-eyed Eliza, — till she longed to 
whisper a word of warning in his ear. Even Sir Holo- 
fernes Rodomont, a very solemn young gentleman of the 
march of intellect school, who was supposed to have fol- 
lowed them from Rome, smitten with admiration of the 
universality of their “nullidge” and accomplishments, 
was neglected for the sake pof this newer speculation. 
Lady Fairford felt herself destined to be a martyr! To 
have that revolted spirit, the toatly she had cherished in 
her bosom, promoted into a Viscountess, and one of her 
toady’s rebellious imps elevated into a Lady Dtilrymple! — 
it was almost too direful a shock for her declining years. 

Mean while, there was no hope that the stern old man, 
who lingered at Naples chiefly in the hope that he' should 
never quit the spot again, would bo roused to the perilous 

4 * 


42 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTEK^ 


position of the gallant son formin ‘ 



tive of his own spirited youth, 


much of an invalid to enter into general society; and in 
the limited circle with which Lady Napier occasionally 
ventured to enliven their desolate home, the Maitland 
crew were artful enough to subdue their tone into that 
mildness of gentle discretion consonant with his taste* 
Their simplest costume^ their softest looks, their lowliest 
words, were always at command to grace the humdrum 
parties of Captain Lalryrnple’s sister. It rejoiced them 
not a little that at such moments they were secure from 
the observation of their dreaded foe. Lady Fairford* 
They were too well aware of the vigilance and malicious- 
ness of her scrutiny, not to apprehend that she tvould at 
once detect their project of appropriating Claudius the 
wealthy to one sister, and Holofernes the wise to the 
other. The choice and its alternative were immaterial 
to the whole family* 


CHAPTER VIII* 


A shallow brain behind a serious mask, 

An oracle within an empty cask, 

The solemn fop, significant and budge, — 

A fool with judges— among fools, a judge — 
He says but little, and that little said 


Owes all its weight, like loaded dice, to lead. Cowper-. 


Obstinate persons, intent on the accomplishment of a 
darling project, are seen to sacrifice even their animositie& 
in the struggle. Lady Fairford, in her eagerness to re- 
venge on the Maitlands their base evasion of her tyranny,, 
overlooked at once her pride and her long-cherished 
hatred of the offspring of Miss Janet Sinclair; and ac- 
tually stooped to solicit an introduction to Claudius Dal- 
rymple,--the hero of every ball-room, every tableau, 
every festina, which the Dowager of Court Oimleen ho- 
noured with her presence. But it so happened that when- 
ever her ladyship’s envoys were despatched in search of 
him for the performance of the ceremony, he was always 
too busily engaged in acting, or dancing, or dealing at 


MY GRAND DAUGHTER. 


43 


ecarte, or carriage-seeking for the Maitlands, to be forth- 
coming; and a woman less absorbed in the object of the 
introduction might have been induced to suspect his dis- 
inclination to form her acquaintance. But Lady Fair- 
ford was wholly engrossed by her anxiety to beguile him 
from the Maitland faction, and dreamed not of his prede- 
termination against enrolling himself in her own. 

“Pray tell your friend Captain Dalrymple,” said her 
ladyship with unusual amenity to Sir Holofernes Rodo- 
mont the prosy, “that since his father, my worthy and 
esteemed friend Lord Dalrymple, is precluded by the in- 
firmity of his health from acting as master of the ceremo- 
nies between us, I trust he will waive all unnecessary 
form, and accompany you to my hotel.” 

“ I have already done myself the honour of delivering 
one message from your ladyship to that flattering effect,** 
said Sii; Holofernes. “But Captain Dalrymple, like most 
of his hyperborean nation ami rude profession, is a very 
inaccessible person — a vastly inaccessible person. It may 
be observed, indeed, as a general rule, notwithstanding 
the present universal spread of nullidge^ that wherever 
the early education and habits of subordination of an in- 
dividual have been, as in the present instance, of a na- 
ture opposed to ” 

“Did you express to Captain Dalrymple,*’ interrupted 
the Dowager, “ that you were commissioned by myself ta 
propose the visit?” 

“Although I may presume to doubt,” said Sir Holo- 
fernes, “whether, in the present state of the cultivation 
of the human mind, — at a moment I may say, indeed, 
when we behold the moral condition of Europe bearing 
universal testimony to the astounding spread of nullidge, 
and to its influence on every branch of the relations of 
the social world,— any thing approaching to subterfuge 
or ” 

“And he absolutely declined to accompany you to my 
house?” hastly inquired Lady Fairford, on foreseeing no 
termination to so Johnsonian an harangue. 

“Your ladyship will do me the honour to pardon me. 
Captain Dalrymple^s negative was only inferential. He 
informed me that he should take an early opportunity of 
profiting by your flattering permission; and whereas six 
weeks liave since elapsed, and whereas, according to your 
ladyship’s own statement, the promise has not been fol- 


44 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


lowed by any attempt at fulfilment, — we are at liberty^to 
deduce from such premises that ” 

“ — Your friend has been too much occupied to fulfil 
his intentions. You have, therefore, only to remind him 
of his engagement.” 

' “ Pardon me, my dear madam, if I presume to view the 
case in a point of view different from that conceived by 
your ladyship. I have often observed, and I rather think 
you will find my opinion borne out by several of those 
classical authorities, which form the ground -work of all 
modern nulliclge, that the arbitrary admeasurement of 
time ” 

“I quite agree with you!” cried the Dowager, to the 
impracticable agent she had selected for her commission; 
and turning to Prince Ludovico Aspradelvalle, with a de- 
mand for the news of tlie day in order to silence the pe- 
roration of the tedious Rodomont, she affected a degree 
of indifference on the subject which she was far from 
feeling. 

Nor did her restless interest in Captain Dalrymple di- 
minish, on observing that he had actually installed him- 
self as the cavaliere of the Maitlands, and was perpetual- 
ly by their side — riding, walking, singing, dancing, flirt- 
ing. No person exactly understood which of the two 
sisters was elected as the partner of his future honours; 
but every one saw that they had gained a most active ally 
in their covert warfare against their noble kinswoman; 
that wherever they chanced to meet, his smiles and innu- 
endos were directed against Lady Fairford as bitterly as 
their own. — The enmity of Lady Grampus and her daugh- 
ters was easily to be accounted for; tlmir narrow minds 
were irritated by the consciousness of obligation. But 
what had she done to provoke the animosity of Captain 
Dalrymple? 

It was in vain that she attempted, on her part, to seduce 
the coteries of Naples from their prejudice in favour of 
the younger Claudius. In spite of ail she had to urge 
against his boorish manners and ill-breeding, they persist- 
ed in seeing in him a spirited gentlemanly young man, en- 
dowed with all the virtues that usually adorn the heir to 
twenty thousand a-year The w'orhl appeared to be as 
faithfully attached to him, as he to the fair daughters-in- 
law of the gastrophilite Grampus. 

Her ladyship’s heart was now “fracted and corrobo- 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


45 


rate!” The humble devotedness of Prince Ludovico, 
the long-winded allegiance of Sir Holofernes, the homage 
of the Cardinal Legate, and' the tender friendship of le- 
gions of princes, princesses, abbati, and English travel- 
lers without end, were insufficient to console her for the 
success of her near and dear relations, the Maitlands, or 
the cool contempt of the Dalrymples. 

Sweet was the hour, and joyous was the day, when the 
sun shone, at length, upon her well-packed travelling- 
carriage, and she saw herself on the eve of departure for 
the land she had quitted in a fit of pique and pride, and 
which she was about to re-enter under a similar influence; 
when, on the very evening preceding her departure, (a 
little circle of her immediate acquaintance being collected 
in her honour,) Sir Holofernes, on perceiving that her 
attention was fully occupied, hastened to inflict his te- 
diousness upon her patience. 

“ It will doubtless prove a subject of regret to a per- 
son of your ladyship’s kindly warmth of feeling, enhanced, 
moreover, in the instance to which I am about to allude, 
by the close claims of consanguinity,” said he, with the 
genuine pertinacity of a bore, ‘‘ to learn the very unhand- 
some manner in which Lord Dalrymple has been pleased 
to interfere in the affair of his son’s attachment.” 

“ The Maitlands are but distant connexions of my fa- 
mily, Sir Holofernes, nor have I any reason to interest 
myself in their proceedings,” said the Dowager, haugh- 
tily. 

“ But on the occasion in question,” pursued Rodo- 
mont with a vague stare, and his usual flow of milk-and- 
water eloquence, “ the objections offered against the 
young' lady being, in fact, a deliberate offence levelled 
against yourself — ” 

“ I do not understand you,” cried Lady Fairford, im- 
patiently; “few people can; and as rny carriage is an- 
nounced, you will oblige me by explaining the business 
as concisely as possible.” 

“In one word then,” said the angry orator, for once 
piqued into that brevity which in that instance was less 
“the soul of wit” than of ill-nature, “old Dalrymple, 
on being applied to for his consent, protested he would 

be d d before he permitted a son of his to match with 

kith, kin, or acquaintance of the Countess of Fairford ! 
I have the honour to wish your ladyship a good night and 
a prosperous journey.” 


46 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


» 


, CHAPTER TX. 


Hame, hame, hame, in my ain countrie. 

Allan Connincham. 


Some excitement is always to be derived from the act 
of settino; foot in our native country, our native metropo- 
lis; — even when, as in the instance of the Dowager Lady 
Fairford, no affectionate hand extends itself to welcome 
us home. A ship entering a harbour, whether freighted 
with ingots or paving-stones, — whether bound from Bel- 
fast or Pondicherry, — is ever an object of interest to the 
spectators; and a lady, who wears in her equipage, suite, 
and habiliments, the announcement of foreign travel, or 
a long residence in some remote country, — more espe- 
cially if a countess, still more especially if a wealthy coun- 
tess like the peeress of Court Ormleen, — is sure of a' 
transient popularity among the wonder-mongers of May 
Fair. 

In the higher classes, where a tone of undeviating and 
consequently monotonous good-breeding prevails, where 
mankind and womankind, or rather lordkind and lady- 
kind, are formed upon one absolute and single model, — 
where there is but one topic, one costume, one shade of 
smile, one mode of existence admissible as of the true 
faith, — it is a charming relief to bdl in with persons pri- 
vileged for a time to maintain their originality. In so 
exhct a system of the heavenly bodies, a comet affords a 
beautiful irregularity. Lady Fairford ’s friends, who would 
not have cared the sixth split of a straw for her, had they 
been in the habit of meeting her from the commencement 
of the season, were lavish of their visits and invitations, 
with the view of seeing some hat or turban of foreign 
.growth, some necklace or bracelet of Roman setting, and 
hearing some delightful, inedited anecdote of Rossini or 
Thorwaldsen. 

She opened her house, — renewed her establishment; 
the newspapers gave due notice of ‘‘a series of dinners. 


MY GRAND-DAtJGHtER. 


47 


assemblies, concerts, and balls, about to be given by the 
Dowager Countess of Fairford to the fashionable world;” 

- — and the fashionable world, accordingly, crowded with 
its visiting tickets to her door. For the first month after 
her arrival in town, her porter stood with an outstretched 
hand receiving cards, in the attitude of a popular physi- 
cian palming his fee. 

Femme propose, — Dieu dispose ! — Instead of the series 
of entertainments announced by the Dowager, funeral 
baked meats were more appropriate to the occasion; and 
instead of the Parisian toques and Roman bracelets of 
which she had projected the exhibition, decency demand- 
ed a sable suit, with all its mummery of jet and bugles. 
The same paper whose eloquence had been taxed to de- 
scribe the triumphal arrival of Lady Gertrude Cunyng- 
hame, in Ceylon, now recorded her triumphal departure. 
But there was no longer any venality in its tribute to her 
virtues : — she was no more! Lady Fairford’s anxiety to 
mortify and afflict her, — her own eager wishes for a re- 
conciliation with her surviving parent, — all were rendered 
abortive; and though the Colombo Gazette duly comme- 
morated that the exemplary wife of the Governor had left 
to the world four copies of her excellence in the form of 
four lovely daughters, her mother would as soon have 
thought of producing four ourang-outangs in the fashion- 
able world to be put to shame by the graces and charms 
of the Miss Maitlands, — now on the eve of their London 
Jebut, — as of extending her protection to a group of awk- 
ward ill-bred colonial beauties, as unaccomplished as they 
were unattractive. The eldest must, perforce, succeed 
to the honours of Court Ormleen, now that La^y Ger- 
trude was out of the question; and the very name of 
grand -daughter (that stigma of female affinity) was twice 
aggravated by the claim of heiress-apparent. After 
having done her utmost towards the starvation of the fu- 
ture peeress, it was unlikely the Dowager should lament 
that a five months’ voyage divided their hereditary enmi- 
ties. She knew nothing of these offspring of the obscure 
Cunynghame, who had so long been a stumbling-block of 
offence^in her path; and had no desire to amend her igno- 

1*^T1C6 • 

Mean while. Lady Grampus profited hastily by the 
month of seclusion to which she knew so rigorous an up- 
holder of etiquette as Lady Fairford would condemn her- 


48 


MY GRAND DAUGHTER. 


self on the decease of a near relative, to produce her own 
paragons in the beau-monde, secure from the malicious 
comments of her former patroness. The result exceeded 
her most sanguine expectations. Beauty is a very beau- 
tiful thing; and two handsome girls, whose manners and 
style of dress were unimpeachable even by the most fas- 
tidious club committee or envious maiden coterie, could 
npt but attract a crowd of admirers. No ball was perfect 
without their presence; no tableau could be arranged, no 
proverbe represented, without their participation. The 
position of their mother was exactly such as admitted of 
general approach. She was, at present, so imperfectly 
established in the beau-monde, tliat the whole mob of 
diamond necklaces and satin gowms formed a desirable 
addition to her acquaintance. There would be a time 
hereafter for fastidiousness. At present, her business 
was to marry her daughters; and repudiating the Tassoian 
adage that 

“ Quanto si mostra men, tanto phi e bella,*’ — 

Lady Grampus was of opinion that her own fair progeny 
formed an exception to the rule; that they could not be 
too much seen, or too much heard. Floriana and Eliza 
accordingly smiled every where, sang every where, 
danced every where; and the sudden animation suc- 
ceeding their announcement, and the rush towards the 
door marking their entree into all, the ball-rooms of May 
Fair, certainly seemed to accredit the tactics of the 
family. For the first fortnight, they were the beauties of 
the season. The most fastidious ineffables ventured upon 
an introduction; and it became an anxious question, 
which among the bachelor Dukes and Marquesses they 
would deign to honour with their preference. But all 
enthusiasm is of brief duration. The world had been so 
much enchanted by its first glimpse, that it was impossi- i 
ble to keep up the illusion. 'Had the Maitlands begun by I 
being mere mortals, — very charming mortals, — the^mania j 
might have lasted. But having commenced their career ! 
as divinities, and shortly evinced symptoms of mortality, 1 
the world grew ashamed of its idolatrous worship. At 
the close of a month, the “ new beauties ” became the ' 
“Miss Maitlands;” — and at the close of two^ “those I 
Maitland girls.” The reaction was proportionate with | 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


49 


the original infatuation; it was surprising how bitterly so- 
ciety avenged upon them\t?> own blindness. 

Such was the state of the case when Lady Fairford, 
emerging from her tedious family -mourning, and a still 
more tedious illness engendered by the seclusion to which 
she had been condemned, re-entered the magic portals of 
the great world. Albeit of an age and character which 
seldom interests itself with the proceedings of the rising 
generation, her anxiety to witness the effect produced in 
society by the two damsels whom it had once been her in- 
tention to present to its suffrage, induced the veteran to 
extend her nightly dissipation beyond the line of dinners, 
card parties, and concerts, to which, on her return to 
England, she had resolved to limit her views. Surprised 
to learn from the rumours of society that Captain Dalrym- 
ple was still included, in the train of the debutantes — she 
inferred from the adulation still lavished upon him by 
Lady Grampus,- that the tale with which she had been fa- 
voured by Sir Holofernes, was an evidence of the extent 
01 his imagination, rather than of the accuracy of his 
“nullidge.” Whatever might be the result of the din- 
ners forced upon Claudius by the father-in-law, and the 
adulation with which he was beset by both mother and 
daughters, it was evident that no proposal had, at present, 
taken place. The ungracious decree of Lord Dalrymple, 
if issued at all, must have been merely in the way of pre- 
monition to his son. 

Every vindictive feeling of the Dowager was now 
roused into action. Death had placed the seal of oblivion 
upon her maternal wrongs; and now between her desire 
to set at naught the authority of her former lover, and her 
dread of seeing a Maitland elevated to those honours so 
dear to her prejudices, — all her splenetic feelings were 
enlisted in the affair. 

One night, while (with her glass fixed upon the pro- 
ceedings of Eliza Maitland who, having pursued young 
Lord Severn into a corner, had mounted guard over him, 
and was waving her raven ringlets with the triumph of 
having captured the best match in the room) and listening 
to Lord Grampus’s murmurs against the odious system of 
serving London dinners a la Russe^ she was struck by the 
elegant figure of a tall, graceful girl, to whom, in defi* 
ance of Floriana’s agaceries, Claudius Dalrymple per- 
sisted in devoting his attentions. Lady Fairford, even 

VoL. II. 5 


50 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


previous to liis ungracious provocations, had found occa- 
sion to blame the flighty familiarity of his demeanour to- 
wards the Maitlands; and she was struck by the alteration 
now visible in his manners. 

“ Who is that lovely girl?” — inquired she of the gas- 
trophilite. “ I never saw a more distinguished looking 
creature. None of the vulgar dash mistaken in the pre- 
sent day for an air of fow.” 

“I don’t think much of her,” replied Lord Grampus, 
contrasting the simple costume and unpretending jiir of 
the stranger with the glowing splendours of the daughters- 
indaw he was taught to consider the “glass of fashion.” 
“ She is a niece of Mrs. Macfarlane of Glenwhelan.” 

‘Vl never saw her before.” 

“You must have met her, but she is easily overlooked. 
Many people think young Dalrymple is paying her atten- 
tion. I should not be much surprised. He is a very un- 
accountable young man. I once saw him eat parmesan 
with brown soup. ” 

“ Is this Miss Macfarlane a girl of good fortune?” in- 
quired the Dowager with some interest. 

“And one day at my house, he actually called for 
bread-sauce with a roast landrail] — What can one expect 
of a man with such unsettled principles? — Between our- 
selves, my dear madam, I always hinted to Lady Gram- 
pus she had no chance of catching him for Floriana; and 
now you see he is fairly entangled by that girl yonder; — 
a creature as insipid as a boiled whiting.” 




CHAPTER X. 


Ev‘n though her means are few, 

She will d' feat the utmost power of man; 

In short, she never yet distinction drew 
’Twixt right and wrong, nor squeamishly began 
To calculate or weigh, save how to gain her plan. 

Hooe. 

Satisfied that nothing would be more mortifying to 
Lady Grampus, than to find the fish she had hooked break 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


51 


through her insufficient tackle only to grace the nets of 
another, Lady Fairford became singularly interested in 
the event. Her immediate ties to society had been either 
loosened or snapt asunder by her long residence abroadj 
and in the lack of better incentives, she was actually al- 
lured from ball to ball, and party to party, by the desire 
of watching Captain Dalrymple’s attentions to Miss Mac- 
tarlane of Glenwhelan, and the fretful irritation of the 
Maitlands on finding themselves eclipsed. An hour’s en- 
durance of the heated atmosphere and noisy crush of the 
fashionable world, was as much as her declining years 
would admit; but amid the ceremonious bows and courte- 
sies, the formal dialogue, and unmeaning commo'h-place 
which fulfilled her present duties to society, she had al- 
ways leisure to note how much the unaspiring niece of 
Mrs. Macfarlane, with her antelope look and tranquil air, 
gained ground in general atimiration. Instead of the 
restless desire of exhibition which kept Floriana and Eli- 
za in perpetual motion, she was always to be sought in the 
back-ground; — instead of their volubility and affected 
animation, she seemed to have adopted the rule of Ma- 
dame de Souza , — ^'‘Farler has fixe V attention;— ‘'parler 
pen fixe le souvenirF — Had not the Countess, on her re- 
turn to London, given out with needless pertinacity'^ier 
determination to form no new connexions or new acquaint- 
ance, she would probably have made some effort towards- 
an introduction to the chaperon of a person in whose fa- 
vour her curiosity v/as so strongly moved. - But she per- 
ceived with regret that Mrs. Macfarlane was only a quiz- 
zicaUlooking little woman in a black silk gown; and, 
how'ever high the dignity of “ Macfarlane of Glenwhelan,” 
northward of the Grampians, the chieftainess was evi- 
dently nobody in the coteries of the May Fair. 

Moreover, notwithstanding the uncalled-fc«i’ gracious- 
ness with which her ladyship had on one occasion made 
room for Miss Macfarlane on the sofa beside her, one 
very crowded Wednesday at A1 macks, when she saw her 
in search of a seat, there appeared a singular degree of 
hauteur in the courtesy with which the young lady de- 
clined the proffered favour, and hurried to the opposite 
side of the room. Lady Fairford, whose elevated posi* 
tion in the w'orld ensuied her considerable deference in 
society, was astonished by this tacit rejection of her over^ 
lures, till she remembered the aversion testified by Lord 


52 


MY GRAND DAUGHTER. 


Dalrymple’s son, and imputed the avoidance of Miss Mac- 
farlane to her lover’s influence^ but so obstinate are the 
prejudices of ill-governed minds, that the discourtesy of 
the obscure girl on whom she had been tempted to bestow 
her notice, seemed only to increase the admiration of the 
unreasonable old woman. 

“ That is the handsomest girl in London,’* she would 
say, pointing to the scornful damsel, whenever her praise 
was demanded for Lady Grampus’s daughters or some 
other budding beauty of the day. “ She is so well-bred, — 
so graceful, — there is so much ease, so much repose in 
her manner!” And the more she saw of the dove-eyed 
nymph in the black crape frock, the more decided became 
her jclisgust against the fanciful attire, — the garlands, — 
the “jewels, chains, and owches,” of the gorgeous Mait- 
lands. 

She did not wonder that with so heavenly a contrast be- 
fore their eyes. Lord Severn and his confraternity of no- 
ble bachelors should withdraw their allegiance from girls 
whose frivolous artificiality was manifest in every word, 
and look, and smile, and movement. She almost regret- 
ted that the increasing decrepitude which it was now the 
aim and object of her existence to conceal from the world, 
prevented her from indulging more largely in such social 
pleasures as might extend her opportunities for observation; 
for her friends were so well aware of the original causes 
of dissension between herself and the Dalrymples, and 
her acquaintance seeing that tliere was no present con- 
nexion between the two families, so seldom gratified her 
by making them the theme of conversation, — that she was 
totally unaware of her enemy the Captain’s departure 
from London, till a paragraph met her eye in the morning 
papers to the following effect: — 

“Naples. — We regret to learn that the state of Lord 
Dalrymple’s health is such as to cause great alarm to his 
family and friends. His eldest son. Captain Dalrymple 
of the Royal Navy, arrived here yesterday from England, 
where he has been detained on family business. Very 
little hope is entertained of the gallant Admiral’s reco- 
very.” 

“I crossed my friend Captain Dalrymple at Domo 
d’Ossola,” said Sir Holofernes Rodomont, on visiting 
the Countess that morning to deliver the despatches with 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


53 ^ 


which he was charged by her Aspradelvallian hero. “It 
is to be hoped that Lady Napier’s interference may pro- 
duce some favourable change in the Admiral’s views; for 
it appears that the old gentleman cannot survive many 
months; and should he expire without having withdrawn, 
his interdiction to the match, Claudius is just the sort of 
man to stickle respecting its accomplishment. It is a 
strange thing that, notwithstanding the gradual intellec-. 
tualization of mankind, notwithstanding the universal 
spread of nullidge ” 

“ Had you arrived in town a month ago, Sir Holofer- 
nes,” said the Dowager, remorselessly interrupting him, 
*‘you would have perceived the fallaciousness of your 
views on that subject. I beg to assure you, that the ex- 
traordinary recital with which you favoured me at Naples, 
relative to a Captain Dalrymple’s attachment to Miss 

Maitland, and his father’s insulting terms of ” 

“Miss Maitland? — Pardon me, my dear inadam, par- 
don mei” cried Sir Holofernes, waving his head with a 
supercilious smile. “The fact is indisputable; but you 
appear in error with respect to the individuals implicated. 
You appear unaware that the aspersion hazarded by my 
Lord Dalrymple, regarded your ladyship’s grand-daughter 
Miss Cunynghame, — the future LadyOrmleen! — It ap- 

f iears incredible, however, that at a period when the en- 

ightenment of the human race ” 

“ Again I am sorry to inform you your information is 
incorrect. The daughters of the late Lady Gertrude 
Cunynghame reside in the island of Ceylon, which they 
have never quitted.” 

“To own the truth, my dear madam, Captain Dalrym- 
ple himself favoured me with an acknowledgment of his 
attachment to your grand-daughter, with a view to depre- 
cate any resentment I might feel at his rejection of your 
ladyship’s acquaintance proposed through myself; but it 
can scarcely be expected from a man absorbed in the se- 
verer studies, — whose mind is in fact exclusively devoted 

to the acquirement of useful nullidge ” 

“It is most unfortunate,” cried the Dowager, peevish^ 
ly, “that you were not more explicit on the subject 
Had I been aware of this attachment, 1 might have ex- 
erted myself in favour of ihe voun^r people.” 

I rather imagine,” said Sir Holofernes, with inad- 
vertent impei'tiuence^ “the greatest kindness your lady- 
5 * 


54 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


ship can exercise in the affair, is to-refrain from interference 
of any kind. It appears to be only as your grand -child 
that Lord Dalrymple has conceived an antipathy to Miss 
Cunynghame; and though it is inconceivable that at an 
epoch when the progress of civilization ” 

“I might at least,” observed Lady Fairford, musingly, 
and addressing herself rather than her companion, “ I 
might at least have facilitated the business by affording 
this poor child a home in her native country. I will write 
to Mr. Cunynghame by the first fleet. If he choose to 
consign his daughter to my protection, she can visit Eng- 
land without delay.” 

“Miss Cunynghame appears so happy and contented 
under the protection of her aunt,” said Sir Holofernes, 
with his usual vague look of stultification, “and Mrs. 
Macfarlane appears so much attached to her, that it would 
surely be a grievance to them to separate; and although 
the old lady is by no means an intellectual woman, — by 
no means what one should expect from the sister of a man 
of such universal nullidge as Mr. Cunynghame, — by the 
way^ — did your ladyship ever happen to meet with the 
prize poem that ” 

“ Do you^actually mean,” cried Lady Fairford, almost 
breathless with consternation, “ that the beautiful girl 
going about with Mrs. Macfarlane of Glenwhelan, is my 
grand-daughter Gertrude Cunynghame?” 

“At a moment of ” 

“Sir Holofernes!” exclaimed the Peeress, for once de- 
fying the etiquettes of life, “answer me without circum- 
locution — yes, or no?” 

“Nothing can be more unpleasant than a catego- 
rical ” 

Lady Fairford threw herself back in her chair, and be- 
tween agitation and wonder, gasped for breath. In the 
course of her sixty-three years, she had never been so 
near fainting as when she received from the tedious fool 
who was at once so chary and so lavish of his “ nullidge,” 
a direct assurance that the elegant girl whodiad scorned 
a seat on the blue satin sofa by her side, was no other 
than the heiress of all her honours, the object of all her 
evil dealings. 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


55 


CHAPTER Xr. 


Les haines sont si longues, et si opiniatres, que le plus grand signe de mort 
dans un homme malade, c’est la reconciliation. 

La Bruyere. 

Every thing in this world is finite. Even Eden had 
its limits, — even the most flowing sentence has its period. 
Lady Fairford, whose life was composed of uneventful to- 
days added to trivial yesterdays, and who had never yet 
paused during its lengthened course tO deliberate largely 
on its tenour, — to reflect soberly on its past or project its 
future, — was now startled into a pause. No sooner did 
Sir Holofernes take his ceremonious leave, than she issued 
a prohibitory mandate of “Not at home,” placed herself 
in her considering chair, and pondered all his sayings in 
her heart. 

But if it proved a source of vexation to her to learn at 
Naples that a slight connexion with herself was sufficient 
to predispose Lord Dalrymple against the wife selected 
by his'sfin, what was the measure of regret and resent- 
ment with which she now recognised the still harsher 
truth. Her grand-daughter — the future peeress of Court 
Ormleen — the descendant of the Earls of Fairford — re- 
jected by the illegitimate offspring -of Lord Inverarie!— ^ 
ignominiously rejected, on the plea that her blood glowed 
within the veins of the despised beauty. Here was a flaw 
in the charter of her pride 1 — Not even the impertinence 
of her toady’s ambitious alliance was to be compared with 
it! — 

From deliberations on the fact, she came to speculations 
on its origin. It was plain that the gallant Admiral of 
many sign -posts, despised or detested herj and although 
she could now understand and almost excuse the antipa- 
thy betrayed by Claudius Dalrymple and Gertrude Cu- 
nyngharne against a person, the sole obstacle to their mu- 
tual happiness, she was for a moment inclined to put 
forth the plea by which she had so long deceived herself 
and others into respect for her virtues, that she herself, 


56 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTEir 


with the best heart in the vvorkl, had been an unintermlt- 
ting victim to the wickedness of her fellow-creatures; 
when lo! a sharp and sudden prick of conscience suspend- 
ed the argument upon her lips. At threescore years, it 
is time that the illusions of life should cease; it is time 
that we should withdraw the drapery with which we have 
striven to disguise those moral deformities, of which early 
wisdom might have suggested the cure. The first flimsy 
veil of sophistry she renounced, exposed enough to excite 
her alarm; till at length, swathe and bandage, folding and 
cerement, were torn away like the envelopes of a mummy, 
and the hideous nature of the hard, dry, blackened object 
within, revealed in all its hideousness! She discerned at 
a glance the weighty responsibility which the favours of 
fortune had placed in her hands; and the carefessness 
with which she had executed the duties of her steward- 
ship! — 

Her hereditary rank had only served to inflate her ar- 
rogance; her hereditary opulence had in no single in- 
stance been made to minister to the welfare of her fellow- 
creatures. She had repaid with contumely the affection 
of an honest heart; she had given her affections to a man 
whose condition she despised, and her hand to a man 
whose person she abhorred. She had withdrawn, in baf- 
fled pride, her affection from the child whom God had 
given her as a blessing; and condemned the offsjiring of 
that good and tender daughter to a pernicious existence 
in a distant colony. — Such was her gratitude to the Dis- 
penser of her prosperous fortunes! — Such her mode of 
administering the talent committed to her charge! — 

Nor did a prolonged rumination on the state of the case 
diminish her self-reproaches. As those who on first en- 
tering a gloomy cavern, see naught but darkness around 
them, are by degrees enabled to discern its circumstantial 
horrors. Lady Fairford became progressively conscious of 
a thousand minor details of guilt and folly. She saw 
that, like Pharaoh of old, her heart had been hardened; 
and trembled lest it should be too late to remedy the mis- 
chiefs occasioned by its evil influence. 

Her reflections ended, — and the tears which attended 
their progress were bifter with remorse,~the Countess 
saw that an act of atonement was required at her hands. 
Hastily seizing a pen, she was about to address a letter to 
Miss Cunynghame setting forth her eagerness for a recon- 


57 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 

ciliation; but a letter would not half fulfil the warm im- 
pulses already swelling in her heart. She determined to 
go, to her,” — to humble herself before the 
child she had injured, and repair her neglect of Lady 
Gertrude by redoubled tenderness towards ber surviving 
daughters. She gave herself no leisure to grow cold in 
her repentance. Ere her pride could incase her once 
more in its iron panoply, she was at Mrs. Macfarlane’s 
door, claiming admittance to the grand-daughter she 
longed to fold to her repentant heart. 

Fortunately for Lady Fairford, she had to deal with 
generous spirits. Mrs. Macfarlane was too candid a per- 
son not to give ready credence to the Dowager’s asseve- 
rations that till that hour she had been unaware of her 
young relative’s residence in England^ while Lady Fair- 
ford, on learning from Gertrude that her parents, alarmed 
lest she should share the destinies of their unfortunate 
son whom she resembled in person and constitution, had 
consigned her to the care of Mr. Cunynghame’s family 
shortly alter her brother’s decease, strove to persuade 
herself that her own absence from England had prevented 
so important a charge from being delegated to herself. 
The estates of Glenwhelan, it appeared, adjoined those 
of Lord Inverarie; but Captain Dalrymple, in bestowing 
his affections on the lovely niece of his neighbour, Mrs. 
Macfarlane, entertained no suspicion that she was grand- 
child to the man whose infancy had been robbed of a mo- 
ther’s protection by the vices of his own grandfather. 

It was the fatal denunciation pronounced by the Admi- 
ral on being apprized of the fact, which so far aggravated 
Lady Dalrymple’s indisposition, as to determine the fami- 
ly to remove to a milder climate. It was the notorious 
antipathy cherished by the Maitlands against the Coun- 
tess of Fairford, (whom the impetuous Claudius naturally 
detested as the originator of his misfortunes) which in- 
duced him to pass so much time in their society. His 
sisters, mean while, were doing their utmost to sooth 
those virulent resentments which for the first time ren- 
dered their father partial and unjust: and the representa- 
tions made by Lady Napier and her sister, that Gertrude 
had been educated by a good and prudent mother, and 
had never been so much as admitted to the presence of 
the worldly-wise Dowager, at length so wrought upon 
his mind, that he sanctioned Captain Dalrymple’s visit to 


58 


MY GRAND DAUGHTER. 


England for the purpose of ascertaining whether a season- 
in London had done nothing to undermine the attach- 
ment conceived on the romantic banks of the Clyde; and 
whether the future Lady Ormleen would concur in his 
desire that a year’s probation should still tax the stability 
of their affection. 

To such a concession, indeed, the good and amiable 
Gertrude Cunynghame willingly agreed; more particular* 
ly as the expected arrival of her father and sisters was 
about to afford a considerable accession of strength to her 
own counsels. But Lady Fairford had no patience to 
witness the slight thus thrown upon a grand-daughter 
whom, unknown, she had so warmly admired, and whom, 
on acquaintance, she already dearly loved. Conscious of 
her own errors, she saw that in this instance. Lord Dal- 
rymple was not altogether blameless; and as the remote 
cause of his injustice, felt it her duty to hazard an appeal 
to his-feelings. Yes! — after forty years’ estrangement, 
she resolved to address the Claudius she had loved, and 
treated with such callous harshness; she resolved to ad- 
dress him as an aged woman may address an aged man 
about to render his account to a higher tribunal; and al- 
though 

“ it might some wonder move \ 

How these together could have talked of love,” — 

there was something solemn and affecting in the occasion 
of the act, and the feelings to which it gave rise. She 
spoke of herself as too penitent and of her grandchild as 
too innocent, to merit his animosity; and laying asitle the 
dignity of the peeress and countess dowager, implored 
him as a Christian to refrain from prolonging the anx- ' 
ieties of two guiltless persons in retribution of her former 
wrongs. 

During the painful suspense preceding the return of the 
courier from Naples, Lady Fairford could scarcely bear 
an hour’s separation from her grand-daughter. There 
was something in Gertrude Cunynghame’s mild, forgiving 
air — something in the holy tenderness with which she re- 
vered the metnory of her mother, and dwelt upon Lady 
Gertrude’s virtues, — which cut her to the soul. She did 
not hesitate to touch upon the chapter of Lady Fairford’s 
nnkiiulness; but her steadiness of principle, — her graceful 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTER. 


59 


fease of address, so superior to the assumption of arro- 
gance, — her prudence, so distinct from guile, — her sobrie- 
ty of mind, so pure from prudery, — -her piety, so free 
from fanaticism, — by degress produced a salutary influx 
ence over the mind of her grandmother. Gertrude had 
been trained in the school of Christian virtue, and the hu- 
mility of her character was not the least of its merits; and 
by the time intelligence reached England of Lord Dal- 
rymple’s forgiveness of herself, and dying benediction on 
the matrimonial engagements of his. son, Lady Fairford 
was convinced that the “awkward, ill-bred, colonial 
belle,” was the most distinguished woman in London;-— 
that the daughter of the obscure Herbert Cunynghame 
had “ a price above rubies;” — and that she herself had 
lived too long “ without God in the world.” — 

It was not till the arrival of the Cunynghame family in , 
England, and the expiration of Lord Dalrymple’s mourn- 
ing that the nuptials took place; when the Dowager in- 
sisted on resigning Maitland Hill to her grand -daughter 
as an English residence. The last lingering spark of her 
pride shone in the splendour with which she insisted on 
celebrating a solemnity, destined to obliterate the heredi- 
tary feuds of the two families. 

“I understand,” said Sir Holofernes Rodomont to 
Lady Grampus, at whose table (without the slightest in- 
tention of proposing to either of her daughters) he occa- 
sionally found it convenient to dine, “ 1 understand that 
the Dowager has conducted herself, upon this occasion, 
with great spirit and magnanimity. The affectation of 
keeping up family dissensions is, in point of fact, a pre- 
judice unworthy a century where the universal diffusion 
iof nuUidge — 

“Pho, pho!” cried Lord Grampus, who was equally 
irritated by his disappointment with respect to the lake- 
trout and moor-game, — and the prospect of being bur- 
dened with two full-grown daughters-in-law, to whom it 
was necessary to concede the liver-wings of the chickens, 
and the middle slice of the pine-apple, — “where could 
Captain Dalrymple find such another match as the heiress 
of a peerage and park with such venison as that of Mait- 
land Hill?— Why, bless my soul, sir!— the Dalrymples 
have an income that would enable them to make either 
Ude or Carerne their own ! — Think of a dish of those 
Clydesdale troutlings, dressed a la Genevoise, or au gra- 


60 


MY GRAND-DAUGHTEIi. 


tinP^ he exclaimed, his mouth watering and his heart 
softening at the idea. “ I should like to hear a man talk 
of hereditary feuds, indeed, with such a prospect before 
him!” 

Fleriana and Eliza sneered! — But neither sneers nor 
envy could reach the prosperous destinies of the bride and 
bridegroom; — and Lady Fairford, in her reconciliation 
with the happy family of the Cunynghames, — in the en- 
joyment of a green old age, — an adoption of habits 
of usefulness, — and a tardy but strenuous fulfilment of 
the duties of her station, was often tempted to acknow- 
ledge that, with all her aristocratic pride, and hollow va- 
nity, she gloried in the lesson she had taken from the vir- 
tues of — HER grand-daughter! 





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FLIRT OF TEN SEASONS. 


How many pictures of one nymph we view, 

All how unlike each other,— all how true! 

Pope. 


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CHAPTER I. 


Fashion, boit ton, and virtu, are the names of certain idols to which wc 
sacrifice the genuine pleasures of the soul. We are content with personating 
happiness ; to feel it is an art beyond us. 

Mackenzie. 


Till five years old, Adela Richmond was the beau- 
tiful plaything of her fine lady mother, the fashionable 
wife of Lord Germaine; from five to ten, the trouble- 
some incumbrance of the fashionable widow of Lord 
Germaine; from ten to fifteen, she was seen by glimpses 
in places of public rc.sort, adored as the queen of every 
juvenile ball-room, and already an object of calculation 
to Lord Germaine’s dowager; and from fifteen to twen- 
ty, five-and -twenty, thirty, we intend that her charms 
and capacities shall be more amply depicted for the 
amusement of the reader. 

In marking by lustres the progress of our heroine 
through the various vicissitudes of childhood, girlhood, 
and womanhood, we do not purpose to neglect those 
minor shades and gradations which intervene from year 
to year — from day to day — nay, hour to hour — in the 
picture of life; but it is necessary to establish the frame- 
work of the canvas from that happy epoch of Adela’s 
existence, which saw the harness of the governess laid 
aside, the Italian grammar exchanged for the Court 
Guide, the muslin frock expanded into the brocaded 
train, the flaxen ringlets raised from her shoulders and 
braided into a Grecian contour. Lady Germaine had 
resolved that her daughter should remain a child till 
she was almost a woman; and, now, by a transforming 
touch of the wand of fashion, chose that she should be-^ 

VoL. I. 6 


62 


THE FLIRT 


come a woman, though almost a child. From the hour 
she was presented at court, Adela found it decreed that 
her laugh should subside into a smile — her natural de- 
meanour into a graceful glide — her playful frankness 
into a courteous discretion. It took her full a week to 
make her own acquaintance after the singular metamor- 
phosis effected by Lady Germaine’s interposition. 

The “musts” and “must of her ladyship’s 

tables of the law would have filled a volume^ and though 
Adela had little difficulty in submitting to a transfor- 
mation dependent rather on the art of the staymaker, 
shoemaker, mantuamaker, milliner, and hair-dresser, 
than on her own exertions, it certainly imposed a tax 
on her memory and her patience, when she found how 
many and how much she was to forget to remember, 
and remember to forget. 

First, in the schedule attached to the commandment 
respecting oblivion of persons, stood the names of a fa- 
mily of cousins; children to a sister of Lord Germaine, 
who had married imprudently. Marrying imprudently 
implied, of course, according to the interpretation of 
the Germainic code, marrying for love instead of mo- 
ney— for good qualities instead of good estates; — and 
when poor Mr. Raymond died the death of a man of 
low fortunes and high blood, (a victim to the pestilen- 
tial climate of a colony maintained by the wise policy 
of government, for the purpose of enabling the aristo- 
cracy to get rid of their younger sons without any ne- 
cessity for a coroner’s inquest,) his honourable widow, 
looking down on the heads of the six little orphans 
whom the yellow-fever had barbarously spared, mio-ht 
possibly be induced to admit the accuracy of the defini- 
tion. Many trite proverbs were quoted for her conso- 
lation. She was reminded that large families always 
get on best in the world, and told that “Providence 
feedeth the young ravens;” while Lady Germaine, her 
sister-in-law, never failed to remark in her presence 
upon the multitude, complication, and fatality of the 
diseases of childhood. 

Strange to relate, however, these little “ ravens,” 

these little Raymonds,— grew to be full-fledged birds 
and to flutter round the parent-nest without any dimi- 
nution of the covey by the attacks of measles, scarlati- 


OF TEN SEASONS, 


63 


na, or whooping-cough. While divers of their aristo- 
cratic kindred spindled up into consumptions, they re- 
rnained tough, rough, and compact; and while their 
little cousin, Lord Germaine was crammed into a liver 
complaint, their homely cheeks became red as roses, 
their laughing eyes bright with the impulses of health. 
Lady Germaine was once heard angrily to declare, on 
quitting Mrs. Raymond’s modest residence at Fulham, 
that she did really believe nothing would ever provide 
for one of those Raymond boys; — that even if Harry 
were to get his father’s appointment in the West Indies, 
he would live for ever. Poor Mrs. Raymond was very 
much to be pitied; but then what could she expect in 
making such a connexion!” 

Not to be left a widow at eight and twenty ! — or she 
would probably have welcomed with less delight the 
birth of Henry, Charles, and William, Mary, — Marga- 
ret, and Jane; — for, with all her motherly tenderness 
and self-denial, she found it a difficult task to maintain 
the appearance due to her connexion with the peerage, 
or satisfy her own fond wishes for her children. Her 
noble brother was dead, and the present Lord Germaine 
(his nephew and her own) a minor, unable to come for- 
ward to her assistance. Adela’s richly jointured mo- 
ther occasionally favoured her with a very long note of 
advice, and a very small note payable at sight; and had 
it not been for the tender mercies of a college friend of 
her husband, who got her second boy entered at Wool- 
wich, and the generosity of a distant relative, a Sir 
Richard Raymond, in placing Henry at school and pro- 
mising him a commission in the Guards, she might have 
been forced, on her children’s behalf, to unite herself 
with a certain old, ugly, fantastic Mr. Orme, who was 
■extremely anxious to marry the indigent family. But 
she had now only little William at home, for whom she 
had been already compelled to accept the painful pro- 
vision of a writership in India. And as to Mary, Mar- 
garet, and Jane, the maintenance of girls, especially 
if good, simple, and well-principled girls, such as 
poor Raymond’s orphans, entails no very alarming ex- 
penditure. 

But it was not little William, it was neither Mary, 
Margaret, nor Jane, whom the beautiful Adela dis- 


64 


THE FLIRT 


covered still adhering to her remembrance, in spite of 
Lady Germaine’s repeated admonition of, “Now you 
are out, my love, it will not do for you to have any 
thing to say to those Raymonds.” — It was Henry, 
“my cousin Harry!” — to whom she had always found 
a prodigious deal to say; and whose replies to her say- 
ings had heretofore been inextricably entangled in her 
memory with the rules of the Italian grammar, and the 
ethics of Mademoiselle Meringue. 

During her father’s lifetime, Henry Raymond, who 
was his godson, resided in his uncle’s family; but no 
sooner did Lady Germaine find herself in possession of 
her liberty and a jointure of two thousand per annum, 
than she despatched a pathetic letter to Mrs. Raymond, 
full of lamentation over her own unfortunate change of 
circumstances, and the necessity it involved of sepa- 
rating the children; and Harry, in the little fancy hus- 
sar-jacket she had not judged it necessary to exchange 
for mourning fpr her lord his uncle, was dismissed on 
the spot, to encroach upon the limited roast mutton and 
rice pudding of his brothers and sisters. It is true La- 
dy Germaine never looked upon her deceased husband’s 
banished favourite, after she had turned him out of her 
house, without expressing an aunt-like hope that he would 
always consider it his home, and Adela as his sister; more 
particularly when Sir Richard Raymond undertook the 
cost of his education, and the care of his advancement. 
But on discovering that the said Sir Richard was a 
married man with a son of his own, and that he pro- 
posed nothing better for his young relative than a pair 
of colours in the foot-guards, she issued an ukase pur- 
porting that Henry Raymond and Adela were once 
more to become brother and sister. This indeed was 
the only safe mode of connexion between them; for it 
must be owned that Harry’s personal appearance did 
ample honour to the young-raven mode of nourishment. 
When he first appeared in uniform in St. James’s Street, 
even the hackney-coachmen frequenting that regal pur- 
lieu, decreed that nothing in the three regiments coulyl 
match with the new ensign. 

At that period, Adela was allowed to think so and 
say so too; for she was then “ not out,” — very far from 
out— only thirteen; already, however, a miniature beau- 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


65 


ly, — an embryo coquette; and already the idol of Henry 
Raymond’s heart. He could always manage to perceive 
half a mile off, Lady Germaine’s carriage dowagering 
in January towards the Serpentine to look, at the skait- 
ers, so as to be in time to astonish his pretty little cou- 
sin with his most elaborate evolutions. Whenever Adela 
vyas smjiggled from the school -room to the Opera for a 
single night to take a lesson from Pasta’s cadences, he 
failed not to detect the lustre of her bright flaxen curls 
the moment she entered the house. He chose to fancy 
himself still a boy, that he might be admitted to the 
youthful entertainments of the season; and would gladly 
have personified even an old woman to obtain admit- 
tance to those morning mysteries of Wills’s rooms, 
whereby the incipient belle’s of patrician lineage are 
initiated into their still more occult midnight revels. 
He had no misgivings, no anxieties on the subject; La- 
dy Germaine was as kind to him, Adela as fond of him 
as ever; — nor was it till the very day of his cousin’s 
presentation, — when, on observing her blushing and 
beautiful face through the window of her mother’s new 
chariot, he flew to offer his hand as she stepped from the 
carriage — that he found himself encroaching in a trou- 
blesome manner on her train — that his assistance was 
wanted by mamma, — that she could take care of her- 
self. But though he observed all this, and even a de- 
gree of coldness in the altered eye of the debutante, he 
did not Jind ^ — he did not infer — he could not dream, 
that he was indebted for the exhibition of such vagaries 
to Lady Germaine’s commands that Adela would have 
“ nothing farther to say to those Raymonds.” 

Now Sir Richard, in extending the generosity of his 
honest heart towards one of the orphans of his distant 
kinsman, had not acted with the precipitancy of those 
who promise more on impulse than they are inclined to 
perform on deliberation; and in the apprehension that 
his son might hereafter feel inclined to diminish the 
measure of his munificence, he had judged it necessa- 
ry to place in the hands of trustees, for the exclusive 
benefit of his protegee, a sum of five thousand pounds. 
The income of two hundred a-year, thus secured to 
Henry Raymond in addition to his pay, was however 
diminished by one half, (precisely in accordance with 
6 * 


66 


THE FLIRT 


his benefactor’s calculation) to increase the pittance of 
his mother and sisters; and many a cold and rainy 
night did Harry trudge home to his lodgings from those 
places of gay resort to which he was tempted by the 
hope of obtaining a glimpse of his beautiful cousin; and 
many a time pass repiningly the doors of the Opera, 
where he knew that Adela’s beauty was attracting the 
gaze of hundreds, lest he sliould trespass upon the little 
hoard he delighted to lay aside for his sister Margaret’s 
annual expedition to the coast. 

It must be owned that Margaret was Henry’s fa- 
vourite of the three sisters; his favourite because she 
most needed favour. If less beautiful than Mary, less 
pretty than little Jane, she was frailer, gentler, less 
self-relying than either. Her delicate health demanded 
more fostering than falls to the lot of one of six unpor- 
tioned orphans; her delicate mind more consideration 
than is apt to be bestowed by the mother of a large fa- 
mily on the least useful member of the little communi- 
ty. But Harry was her decided champion; would make 
any sacrifice for the augmentation of her scanty stock 
of comforts, and exert all his eloquence with his bro- 
thers and sisters to render them equally forbearing. 
Margaret had no means of rewarding all this kindness, 
but by loving him intensely, and listening patiently to 
all his details of Adela Richmond’s attractions, and the 
admiration lavished upon their fair cousin whenever she 
made her appearance in the world; — to his lamentations 
over his own want of fortune, and Lady Germaine’s 
want of magnanimity. It seemed still more extraordi- 
nary to Margaret than to himself, that their cousin 
should hesitate to frown on all mankind for the sake of 
her devoted adorer; or that the dowager should be blind 
to the eligibility of keeping her daughter single for the 
chance of Harry’s becoming a fiield-officer with a pri- 
vate fortune of an encumbered two hundred per annum. 

That she did so close her eyes, soon became apparent 
to the young ensign. Harry found himself promoted to 
new dignities without any war-office advertisement in 
the Gazette. He now became Mister Raymond with 
his aunt and Adela; and instead of the smile and blush 
with which his assiduities were formerly repulsed by 
the little coquette, they were listlessly and almost un- 


OP TEN SEASONS. 


67 


consciously accepted by the fine lady. The Hon. Miss 
Richmond could not condescend to be rude, but she 
alienated him from her side by the utmost impertinence 
of fashionable languor^ seemed incapable of exerting 
herself to return his bow, to answer his inquiry; and 
yawned her way through the dance, in which the forms 
of society forbade her to refuse him her hand, unless 
with the penalty of sitting still for the remainder of the 
evening. All this was done in a manner his quick spi- 
rit could not but resent. Adela’s calculations were 
fully answered that Henry would soon desist from seek- 
ing her as a partner; but then it was no fault of hers: — 
Lady Germaine had ordained that she was to have “no- 
thing more to say to those Raymonds.” 

On his next visit to the cheerful cottage at Fulham, 
which tlie activity of his mother and the natural refine- 
ment of his sister Margaret rendered so charming a re- 
treat, Henry found it difficult to answer their number- 
less interrogations touching the success of their cousin 
Adela’s debut. Mary, her rival in beauty, had a thou- 
sand investigations to make concerning Miss Richmond’s 
dress, her style, her position in society; Margaret was 
only anxious to learn whether the world had wrought no 
evil in her, — whether her smiles were still as affection- 
ate for “ my cousin Harry,” as they were enchanting 
to all the other Harries of the metropolis; while Jane 
cared only for the list of her conquests, and the amount 
of peers she had already reduced to desperation. 

Henry contrived to give as satisfactory a reply to all 
these questions as he could, without implicating the 
haughty beauty by an unqualified statement of her pro- 
ceedings. For himself, he had only one anxiety on the 
subject: — was Adela happy, or likely to remain so?—* 
Alas, he feared not! 


68 


THE FURT 


CHAPTER II. 


Shall I paint Aurelia’s frown ? 

Her proud and regal looks, — her quick black eye 
Through whose dark fringes such a beam shot down 
On men (yet touched at times with witchery) 

As when Jove’s planet, distant and alone, 

Flashes from out the sultry summer sky. 

Procter. 


Sir Richard Raymond and his wife (for according to 
the custom of the good old times they composed a sin- 
gle animal, and therefore need not be severally consi- 
dered by the biographer) were of high respectability in 
their native county of Dorset, — of utter nothingness 
among the Stars and Garters of the metropolis. They 
had commenced life together by an early marriage, as a 
baronet and dame of tolerable pedigree with a clear ten 
thousand per annum j and at the expiration of forty 
years stood pretty nearly on the spot from whence they 
started. Kind-hearted, simple, affectionate, bountiful 
to their poorer neighbours, living and letting live with 
those of higher degree, — they were cordial and reverent 
with an old dunny Vicar who half-starved a deserving 
curate, — by way of testifying their respect to the Churchy 
and evinced unlimited submission and regard towards 
their colossal neighbour the Duke of Dronington, who 
bullied his wife and his tenants, and sneaked to his so- 
vereign and his sovereign’s minister, — by way of proving 
their reverence to the state. They intended well, how- 
ever, and therefore seldom acted ill; they had a warm 
heart, which was sure to prevent the head from dis^ 
gracing itself, 

It is wrong to assert that nothing was changed at 
Langdale House from the period of Sir Richard’s mar- 
riage and first session in parliament, to that of the com^ 
inencement of our story. He was now a father: — not 
like his luckless cousin, of six hungry and promising 
children, but of one sleek, self-satisfied, middle-aged 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


69 


man, whom Sir Richard and her ladyship alone regard- 
ed relatively to his position as their son. To all the 
rest of the world he was “Burford Raymond;” a man 
with a name — with a seat in the house — chambers in 
Albany — a position in society; — a being as much above 
the level of his country baronet of a father, in all the 
adventitious distinctions of life, as he was beneath him 
in every moral purpose, in all the best qualities of hu- 
man nature. 

But though Sir Richard and Lady Raymond continu- 
ally referred to him with pride and pleasure as “ my 
son Mr. Raymond,” certain it is that they were full of 
wonder at having hatched so wise a bird; and regarded 
him w'ith somewhat more of awe than of parental ten- 
derness. Perhaps, after all, the miracle was one of 
education; for scarcely had Master Raymond begun to 
trot round the hall at Langdale on his father’s walking- 
stick, when their neighbour of Dronington, a man sin- 
gularly addicted to the theoretical and practical main- 
tenance of absolute monarchy, took it into his ducal 
head to investigate Sir Richard’s projects of education 
for his heir apparent: to suggest a Reverend Nicode- 
mus Fagg, M. A., as his private tutor, and to insist upon 
the paramount necessity of .classical proficiency to eve- 
ry English gentleman of modern times. “An English 
gentleman” is one of those cant phrases of the day 
which are introduced on all occasions to fill up defi- 
ciencies of personal definition. — Poor Sir Richard had 
always fancied himself m English gentleman” when, 
on a distant glimpse of his broad-brimmed hat and 
white corduroys in the High Street of his county-town, 
every head was uncovered, and 

All men cried, ‘ God save him !’ 

or when feasting his tenantry on rent-days, Christmas 
days, and other highdays and holidays; or, when com- 
plimented from the Treasury bench on his luminous ex- 
position of the state of public opinion in his native 
county. He now found he had been mistaken. How 
could it be otherwise, when his very good friend the 
Duke of Dronington said so, or so implied? — He re- 
solved that Master Burford should have plenty of Ho- 


70 


THE FLIRT 


race and Pindar drummed into his head to compensate 
his father’s deficiencies, and qualify the future proprie- 
tor of Langdale to become “an English gentleman I” 
Nicodemus Fagg was accordingly installed in his 
functions at Langdale House, and certainly spared nei- 
ther Greek nor Latin on his pupil. Burford, who was 
always a grave heavy child, became a solemn plausible 
boy, a pedantic man; and his pains-taking tutor, — while 
he laboriously fulfilled the intention of the Duke of 
Dronington, by teaching young Raymond’s political 
ideas to shoot as exactly in accordance with those of 
his Grace as if every twig had been nailed up over the 
old Gothic gateway of Dronington Manor, — fancied 
himself repaying Sir Richard’s liberal salary by ob- 
taining for his son the highest honours of Eton and the 
University. Burford Raymond was the first man of 
his year, and, between ourselves and the reader, one 
of the coldest dullest egotists who ever detected a false 
concord, or prosed over the intricacies of Greek pro- 
sody. 

It is not to be imagined that So complete a prodigy 
of erudition would content himself witn Squire-ifying 
for life at Langdale House; listening to his mother’s 
rheumatic grievances, or carving venison for the corpo- 
ration of * * * '* * — after an obscure season passed in 
the metropolis, where his personal insignificancy alFord- 
jed a lesson more afflicting than profitable, he persuaded 
the good old Baronet that it was indispensable for “an 
English gentleman ” to travel; and as no family living 
was just then vacant to recompense the exertions of 
Nicodemus, the dominie considerately agreed to become 
the post-chaise companion of his quondam pupil. Most 
young men of twenty-four would have voted the socie- 
ty of a pedagogue superfluous in such an exigency. 
But Burford Raymond entertained no projects of 
amusement in which the presence of the divine was 
likely to prove embarrassing. He had no thoughts of 
visiting Paris; no curiosity respecting Berlin, Vienna, 
Florence, or Naples; but was earnestly bent on a pil- 
grimage to 

The spot where Troy once stood, and nothing stands ? 
and eager to examine into the rites and relics of my- 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


71 


thological idolatry in the Archipelago. He cared no- 
thing for Mont Blanc or Vesuvius, the Louvre or the 
Vatican: but his ambition was roused to ascertain whe- 
ther Lacedemonian broth is still eaten black in Misi- 
tra. 

From these erudite researches, Burford Raymond, 
like other monkeys who see the world, returned with a 
solemn physiognomy, a vocabulary of polysyllabic words, 
a collection of well-turned phrases, and the coterie-re- 
putation of being one of the most learned men in Eu- 
rope. He became an F. S. A. an F. R. S. and every 
other sort of fellow excepting always a good fellowj — 
still priding himself on being “an English gentleman, 
though whether he possessed the generous and honour- 
able sentiments characteristic of that distinction, or 
had added one iota to the stock of human knowledge 
such as might entitle him to the alphabetical honours 
attached to his patronymic, is highly problematical. He 
became, however, on the strength of his classical tra- 
vels, a dining-out lion; and executed several bon-mots 
which were accepted as stock pieces in the repertory of 
the clubs. A well -sounding name, and the two thou- 
sand per annum allowed by his father, afforded a cre- 
ditable footing in society; and in the course of twelve 
years wholly and solely devoted to the task, he con- 
trived to establish his reputation as a most accomplished 
scholar, a “man of wit and fashion about town.” He 
lived indeed in a small but very select circle, wherein 
his sayings were pre-assured of applause; and his do- 
ings, minute as they were, ran no chance of being 
brought to shame by the lofty deeds of his competitors. 
In a word, he was now, “Burford Raymond;*’ a man 
to quote— a personage; nor would any human being 
have presumed to suspect his affinity to the Dorsetshire 
baronet, with the broad-brimmed beaver and hunting 
‘ cords. 

But with all the admiration entertained by Sir Ri- 
1 chard for his illustrious son, it would seem that he was 
’ apt to regard the learned Pundit as better versed in 
Pausanius or Euripides, than in Coke, Blackstone, or 
Burn’s Justice;— seldom consulting the sage of Albany 
respecting his family affairs, and never in those where 
worldly wisdom was to merge in active liberality. Sir 


72 


THE FLIRT 


Richard undertook, for instance, the maintenance of 
little Henry without one word of reference to the 
dining-out dictator^ and was in the habit of inviting 
the young and lovely Mary Raymond to pass the sum- 
mer at Langdale, without the slightest regard to Bur- 
ford’s displeasure on observing such an addition to 
their family circle. 

Perhaps, the groper of antiquities might have been 
less disposed to opposition on the subject, had he not 
found reason to suspect that one of the motives of his 
parents in placing their fair relative so determinately 
in his way, was to suggest a future ladyship for Lang- 
dale House. But Burford was not tlie man to receive 
suggestions. He thought it necessary to mark his 
sense of Sir Richard and Lady Raymond’s presumption, 
by demeaning himself towards Mary with as much su- 
percilious respect as if she had been queen of the Sand- 
wich Islands: while Miss Raymond, too little versed in 
the airs of London coterieism to apprehend the mean- 
ing of the solemn coxcomb, looked upon him in return, 
as a very curious specimen of a class of animals quite 
new to her; and on many occasions perplexed his dig- 
nity by the naivete and pertinacity of her questions re- 
specting the manners and customs of his section of so- 
ciety. 

It was peculiarly disgusting to Burford Ravmond 
when these indiscretions of speech chanced to occur in 
the presence of the Duchess of Dronington, and her 
daughter. Lady Caroline Iltleifield. What opinions 
would they form of his connexions, on learning that he 
had a family of cousins living at Fulham, who knew 
not where A1 macks was situated, nor whether it were 
the name of a man, house, street, or square; and that 
one of them, moreover, was so deficient in tact, as to 
amend her ignorance by public inquiries on the subject. 
But Mary Raymond was incorrigible; Lady Caroline 
had frequently put up her glass at her, without abash- 
ing her into nothingness!, while the Duchess had twice 
called her “that young person,” without renderino- her 
at all conscious of her own insignificance. ^ 

Nor was this the worst aspect of the affair. Another 
member of the Ilderfield family, now began to amuse 
himself with raising a glass to Miss Raymond’s beauti- 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


n 

ful face and sparklinj; eyes. The young Marquis of 
Stoneham— a very ladylike young man just returned 
from tile continent-— had openly avowed his opinion that 
she was the prettiest girl in the county, and marked his 
intention of honouring her with his patronage? on which 
hint Burford, instead of courting the chance of getting 
rid of the intruder from Langdale by making her a 
Marchioness, became more shocked than ever by her 
presumption in effecting such a conquest! Mary Ray- 
mond, — a poor relation, — a girl who thought herself 
fortunate when Sir Richard put a ten pound note into 
her hand to buy her a new dress ; — shn to aspire to the 
lionours of Dronington Manor.^-^Monstrous!— Burford 
W'as nearly as much distressed as their Graces, the 
Droningtons themselves! The Duke, indeed, com- 
menced, on this occasion, an attack upon the persuade^ 
ability of Sir Richard, almost as <lirect as that he had 
formerly practised in favour of Nicodemus Fagg. He 
rode over to Langdale, and entertained his worthy 
neighbour a full hour tete-a-tete in the library, with 
the avowal of his uneasiness lest ‘^that showy-looking 
girl whom Lady Raymond chose to keep about her 
should attract the attention of his young friend, Mr. 
Burford Raymond. Marriages between cousins w'ere 
such bad things— such very dungewus things: — no ex- 
tension of the family connexion,— no cross in the racei 
He ventured strongly to recommend his dear Sir Ri- 
chard to despatch Miss Raymond back to her friends.’^ 

But his dear Sir Richard was as inflexible on this 
point as he had been on that of assuring a provision to 
little Harry. Miss Raymond was with her friends-— 
was engaged to pass the winter and spring at Langdale. 
He was not ambitious of an extension of his connexion? 
not solicitous about a cross in the race; not alarmed on 
Burford’s account?— his son might marry Mary as soon 
as he pleased.” 

Unfortunately, eld Dronington was perfectly well 
aware that he did not please; that all her charms and 
captivations were and would remain at the service of 
his own son. Lord Stoneham. He had long felt a dis- 
taste towards the family at Langdale on account of 
Burford’s pretensions to the hand of his daughter; and 
this second instance of Raymond ambition almost over- 

VoL. L 7 


THE FLIRT 


powered him. The Duke had some consalatmrt liff 
knowing that he had nothing to apprehend from Lady 
Caroline’s favourable reception of the suit of the sonj- 
but he saw n& means of evading Stoneham’s perverse 
predilection for the poor relation. Even were his Grace 
to quit Dronington with his^ family and pass the winter 
at one of his seven other seatSf it would be impossible 
to control the movements of a full-grown puppy, or im- 
pose the authority of a bear-leader or head-nurse, upon 
a young gentleman, who had already officiated as one 
of the junior lords of His Majesty’s Treasury. All 
that could be done by his desponding parents in bis de- 
fence, was to fill Dronington Manor with groups of 
young ladies as pretty and witty, but better born and 
better bred than this hundred and nineteenth cousin of 
a Dorsetshire Baronet. They could not, indeed, 
(while such a thing as electioneering interests remained 
to be considered,) entirely exelude the Raymonds from- 
a participation in the gaieties which were the result of 
these importations, nor refuse a formal dinner-party at 
Langdale House in return^ but they resolved to crush 
both Mary and her pompous cousin into absolute anni- 
hilation by the mere force of contrast, — the mere supe- 
riority of fashion^ 


OFTEN SEASONS. 




CHAPTER IIL 


He sets out bis feathers like an owl, to swell and seem bigger than he is : 
■fie is troubled with a tumour and inflammation of self-conceit,' that render 
dbim stilT and uneasy. Butler. 

Langdale House was a mansion of the old cast; 
square, solid, respectable and hideous. It was situated 
an a fine park, but so completely on the verge of the es- 
tate as to invalidate the benefit of its fine woods and 
majestic stream; and with a thousand noble situations 
begging to be built upon, chose to stand on the very 
verge of a solitary unsheltered hill, apparently requiring 
a prop to maintain it on its unstable footing. Notwith- 
'Standing its extent and dignity of proportion, the red 
brick of which the house was composed, contrasting 
with the plantations of firs and Weymouth pines which 
the present baronet had tried to coax into growth, to 
-disguise its nakedness, gave it a trivial and vulgar ap- 
pearance. Lord Stoneham and his St James’s Street 
friends called it “ Le Chateau de Rouge et Noir»^’ 

The interior of the mansion was precisely accordant 
with its external promise. It was cold, rectangular, 
roomy, and comfortless; and Mary, who was adjudged 
by her cousin so unnecessarilytfortunate in being trans- 
lated from the cottage at Fulham, to the higher see of 
Langdale, was apt to fancy that her mother’s cheerful 
abode, with all its little modernisms, the gifts of her 
-son or the results of the industry of her daughters, was 
a far pleasanter place than the vast “ parlour’* in which 
Lady Raymond, her pug and her worsted-work, took 
tlieir station morning after morning, amid hard high- 
backed mahogany chairs, and black narrow refulgent 
jiiahogony tables— sans books, sans flowers, sans taste, 


76 


THE FLIRT 


sans evei’j thing; two newspapers, (the Dorchester 
Evening and metropolitan Morning Chronicle,) alone 
connecting the scene with the passing day. The baro- 
net was, in fact, a holy hater of innovation; he had no 
notion why the library chair, which had been sufficient- 
ly commodious for his father. Sir Henry, should be too 
hard for himself, Sir Richard; and if Rachel, third 
Lady Raymond, had contented herself with a square 
board by way of dressing-table, he considered it absurd 
to extend the fantastical improvements of modern art 
to Lady Raymond the sixth. He was no frequenter of 
shopSj no coveter of superfluous moveables; and with 
the exception of Burford Raymond’s sealed apartments^ 
Vvhich he had rendered a fac simile of his chambers in 
the Albany, there was not a room in the house but 
threatened martyrdom to a lounger. 

The Baronet was in fact one of those unaspiring per- 
sons who are content to live within the limits of their 
income, without grasping at all the enjoyments, or af- 
fecting all the follies, created by the opulence of a 
wealthier class. But it is evident that penuriousness 
was not the origin of his predilection for his threadbare 
fustian curtains and chain-stitch chairs. A niggardly 
man would not have set apart a provision for an orphan 
kinsman, nor thrown a portionless beauty in the way 
of his heir apparent. Perhaps he was not a lover of 
luxury;>^perhaps the gratification of an easy conscience 
was in his opinion a better promoter of a comfortable 
doze, than that of an easy chair or eider-down mat- 
tress. 

Nothing could be more diverting than the air of dis- 
comfort with which the Duchess of Dronington sat 
mounted on the state sofa, and Lady Caroline on a high- 
arched satin fauteuil, on occasion of those annual din- 
ners at Langdale House which brought them into me- 
lancholy contact with their contemptible neighbours 
Lord and Lady Soho (who had just crept into the peer- 
age with their half dozen Honourable Misters and 
Misses Compton;) their more contemptible neighbours 
Mr. and Mrs. and the two Miss Dechiminis; and their 
most contemptible neighbours the dunny Vicar Dr. 
Docket, and the injured curate Mr. Rubric. 

Frorn these parties, (a tribute from the maternal ten- 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


77 


deitiess of the Duchess of Dronington to her son’s par- 
liamentary career) Burford Raymond contrived to ab- 
sent himself; for they usually occurred in the month of 
October, when he went pheasant-shooting to his mo- 
ther’s Norfolk estates. He had scarcely courage to 
see Lady Caroline Ilderfield’s sneering eye making 
a catalogue of that “ancient most domestic furniture ” 
he was so anxious to convert into the goods and chattels 
of her own jointure-house; and never did the Duke and 
Duchess of Dronington set foot in Langdale House, 
but he felt heartily ashamed of his old-fashioned father 
and mother, their old-fashioned saloon, and old-fashioned 
modes of hosj^itality. 

By some ill-timed arrangement on the part of Sir 
Richard, on occasion of Mary’s last and wonder-work- 
ing visit, his son was on the spot to do the honours of 
tlie hecatomb offered up to their Graces of Dronington; 
and bitter indeed was his vexation on observing through- 
out its tedious courses, the, piteous expression of wea- 
riness and malaise visible in the party. He, whose 
field of triumph waS'the field of the cloth of damask, 
whose victorious course was that second course of a 
dinner party which is as favourable to the sayers as to 
the eaters of good things, — he, Burford Raymond, 
learned to hail with delight the awful moment when 
butlers announce tlie illumination of the drawing-room; 
when gloves and handkerchiefs are assiduously scram - 
-^blcd for under the table, till many a plethoric gentleman 
assumes the complexion of a turkey-cock; — when 
young ladies scud like a flight of lapwings in all the de- 
licate embarrassment of undecided precedence, while 
the dowagers rustle from the room like seventy -four 
and three-deckers leading a fleet out of harbour. 

Burford Raymond noted with ifisgust the admiring; 
glances cast by the young Marquis at Mary as she 
glided past his chair; but it would have called forth 
still deeper indignation had he known the easy self-pos- 
session with vvhich-soon afterv/ards she sat conversing 
with his lordslnp’s haughty sister, in the room which 
Lady Raymond thought proper to nominate her boudoir. 
The fault was Lady Caroline’^s; who, with all her con- 
‘tempt for Miss Raymond’s ringlets and fashionless air, 
.found her a degree more endurable than the Comptons 


78 


THE FLIRT 

and Dechiminis, whom she could not honour by a simi- 
lar familiarity without the chance of finding her ac- 
quaintance claimed by them in London. Having led 
the way to the little sanctum whither she knew theii* 
companions would not presume to follow uninvited, she 
screwed herself up with a most repining countenance 
into one of the great carved settees^ and gave vent to 
her impertinence by tormenting Mary with a thousand 
questions, without listening for the reply, and with a 
diousand details in reply to questions which Mary had 
never asked. 

“ You have a brother in the Guards, I think. Miss 
Raymond? — I nften meet him at Almacks, and the sort 
of public places where one meets every body.” 

“On the'coDtrary, my brother never — ” 

“Exactly! — Very tall, with red hair. He would be 
a very good waltzer if he bad the least idea of time, 
but—” 

“ I assure you (hat Henry^” 

“ They would have it last season that he w'as going 
to be married to Lady Gertrude Mildhurst; but I have 
very good reason to suppose he was only flirting with 
her married sister^ and — ” 

“You are quite mistaken in—” 

Ah !— rwell 
trude is a very 
a good set, and 
popular, indep< 
thousand pounds, which Mr. Raymond, — Gaptain Ray- 
mond — Captain, is he? — found so irresistible?” 

“ Believe me. Lady Caroline — ” 

“No! I really never trust to sisterly exculpations., 
Adela Richmond and I settled one night at Lansdowne 
-House—” 

“ Adela!— thefn you know-^” 

“Very true! — I see you agree with us that a younger 
brother is just as excusable in attaching himself to an 
heiress, as a younger sister to an elder son. Adela de- 
clares that the very notion of being^a Mrs. Henry, or a 
Mrs. Charles, would drive her to distraction.” 

‘•‘Drive her to distraction!” retorted Mary; “my 
cousin Adela’s proceedings — ” 

“Your cousin?”— cried Lady Caroline,, now really 


— ^1 dare say I was wrong. Lady Ger- 
pretty girl; and though by no means in 
too English in her tone, she is tolerably 
endent of the attraction of those fifty 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


79 


anxious for a reply. Is Adela a cousin of yours, and 
of all these Langdale people? — I never should have 
guessed it.” 

“Not of all these Langdale people, — if you mean—-” 

“ Sir Richard and her ladyship, and their learned 
son?” 

“ Adela Richmond is my mother’s niecej the Ray- 
monds are relations on my father’s side. 

“ Ah ! very true. I remember hearing her say that 
it was the destiny of the last generation of Miss Ray- 
monds to marry in some unfortunate way or other; and 
that she had made up her mind to amend the matrimo- 
nial destinies of the Germaine family. 

“ I hope she may fulfil her intentions,” observed 
Mary in a tone of pique. And yet— ” 

“She has every chance that beauty and fashion can 
give,” said Lady Caroline, sneeringly. “One of my 
younger brothers took it into his head to fall desperate- 
ly in love with her as soon as she came out; and mam- 
ma was seriously uneasy about it. But I pacified her 
by the assurance, that so long aa an heir apparent was 
to be had in London, Horace ran no danger; and, just 
as I predicted, "she refused him at the end of the sea- 
"son, in company with half a dozen other despairing 
swains, not one of whom filled up the measure of her 
ambition.” 

“ Not one of whom had managed to engage her af- 
fections, I conclude,” added Mary, gravely. 

“I rather fancy Adela has no affections to engage,” 
observed the impartial Lady Caroline. Either her 
heart was already gone, or she was born without one.” 

“ I will answer for it that she had one, and a very 
warm one too, when we were all children together.— 
But Lady Germaine is a very worldly woman; and, 
perhaps, may have rendered Adela as calculating as 
herself.” , , . . 

•“ Perhaps so; it remains to be proved whether they 
calculate wisely. They seem to forget that human life 
is precarious; and that when La<ly Germaine’s jointure 
goes, Adela will only have her pretty face and a few 
thousand pounds tOr push her on in the world. An 
only child and without any opulent connexions, what 
on earth would become of her in the event of her mo- 
^her^s death?” 


so 


THE FLIR r 


“.Poor girl!” said Mary, shudderirkg at any allttsioa 
to the death of a mother, 

“And yet she has been rasli enough to refuse Mr. 
fironz-e, — that great huge vulgar man with a Yorkshire 
estate as large as himselfj and Sir Hector Mackenzie, 
who brought back that noble fortune last year from 
Calcutta!” 

“Indeed!— then after all,” said Mary, secretly re- 
verting to the girl and boy attachment between Adela 
and her brother Harry, my cousin may not be so 
heartless as 1 thought; after all she may prove herself 
superior to the temptations of a mercenary match.” 

“ Heartless? — Why what do you imagine to have been 
her inducement in rejecting Sir Hector and Bronze? — 
Affection for my brother Horace, or some other chival- 
4 *ous knight with the horrors of a small competence to 
allure her to St. George’s Church? — No, no! my dear 
Miss Raymond, — 1 cannot believe that so much unso- 
phistication of mind exists even at Langdale. — ” 

“ What could have been her motive?” inquired Mary. 

“Her mother’s, you mean; — for my friend Adela had 
■little voice in the business. Why of course to form a 
better connexion. Lady Germaine has been manoeu- 
vring to get Stoneham to her house all the spring; — and 
young Lord Westerham appeared really struck by 
Adela’s beauty; — and Colonel Rawford, Lord Raw- 
ford’s eldest son, is always dangling after her. In short, 
she is the fasliion; — and Lady Germaine fancies she 
may marry whom she pleases. But both mother and 
^dauglyter may find themselves mistaken. Marrying and 
flirting are too very ditterent modes of amusement.” 

“Marrying and flirting are too very dirterent modes 
of amusement!” exclaimed young Hechiraini, with most 
iprovoking mimicry, having entered the boudoir on tip- 
-toe without the smallest deference to the dignity of the 
two young ladies. “Raymond! — will you believe that 
Lady Caroline has actually decoyed your fair cousin 
into this lonely chamber to impart a lesson in fiishiona- 
ble ethics.” 

B.urford was furious that a Mr. Dechimini, an undis- 
tinguished individual with a plebeian name, should pre- 
sume to “ Raymond ” /dm, or degrade Lady Caroline 
dlderfield to the level of his cousin Mary. 


TEN SEASONS. 


81 


“Remington, my dear fellow!” cried Mr. Dechimi- 
ni to Lord Soho’s eldest son, who now entered the bou- 
doir, (a young man who, in spite of his connexion with 
a new peerage, was looked up to as one of the most 
eminent of the rising generation,— whose society was 
welcomed by the gray-beards of law and literature, as 
eagerly as by the men of his own standing) “Reming- 
ton, do pray come and try your eloquence in persuading 
Lady Caroline to extend her course of lectures. For 
my part, I am dying to learn in what sort and degree 
the amusements of flirting and wedlock are incompati- 
ble; or by what lapse of discretion Miss Raymond has 
subjected herself to the homily.” 

“Will you join the Duchess?” — said Burford Ray- 
mond in a low tone to Lady Caroline, offering her his 
arm to conduct her into the other room; and too indig- 
nant to remonstrate with the son of a Dorsetshire squire, 
who presumed to apostrophize so familiarly the only 
daughter of the Duke of Drpnington. 

“Thank you,” replied the young lady, who had no ob- 
jection to flirt or be flirted with by the young Comp- 
tons when no better diversion was at her disposal, “I 
came here to avoid the unendurable heat of the other 
room.” 

“ Unendurable! How cornpletely a lady’s word,” 
cried Dechimini again: nothing daunted by the dry lofty 
disdain of the classical proficient. 

“Your ladyship has nothing to apprehend from the 
atmosphere of the drawing-room,” interposed Burford 
very stiffly; “the doors have been opened into the li- 
brary.” 

“I wish the bookworm would profit by the circum- 
stance, and betake himself to his proper latitude,” 
whispered the young Squire to Remington Compton, 
who stood with his keen satirical eye fixed upon the 
mincing affectation of Lady Caroline, the solemn af- 
fectation of her admirer; and secretly pondering over 
the dulness and embarrassment which the presence of 
a single disagreeable or fastidious person spreads around 
hinij — when a general murmur of satisfaction and gra- 
tulation was heard in the adjoining apartment. Sir 
Richard’s voice rose to its highest pitch of exultation; 
Lord Soho’s hand was heard inflicting a friendly slap 


S2 


THE FLIRT 


on the back of some new comer; Miss Compton smiled, 
— Lady Raymond’s pug capered and frisked, — ami 
Burford stood aghast while in the midst of it all— 
*‘Ay, ay! Harry will find his way to them without 
much prompting/* uttered in the cordial voice of his 
father, announced to him the inopportune arrival of 
young Henry Raymond! In another minute the bro- 
ther of Mary was among them; imprinting an affection- 
ate kiss on her cheek, receiving a most gracious bow 
and smite from Lady Caroline, shaking hands cordially 
with Compton and Dechiminiy and respectfully with 
the learned Albanyan himself; in his morning dress, re- 
dolent of the freshness of the external atmosphere, his 
hands and face glowing with the chill air through which 
he had been travelling (the monster!) on the top of a 
Dorchester coach. 

Burford Raymond was scandalized beyond measure 
at the disclosure of such a circumstance in presence of 
the Dronington party. He could have annihilated the 
indelicate intruder on the spot; more particularly when 
Lady Caroline, instead of maintaining her usual air of 
languid apathy, brightened up to laugh and talk with 
the young Guardsman; of whom she had a tlmusand in- 
quiries to make respecting their friend Lady Gertrude 
Mildhurst, — their friend This, their friend Lady That, 
Lord and above all, respecting his cousin Adela Rich- 
mond. 

It was surprising how soon the formality of the party 
•gave way before the influence of Henry’s popular man- 
ners and cordial tone. Every body liked him^ Even 
the dense old Duke had always fifty questions to put 
respecting his regiment, in which he had himself served 
when Marquis of Stoneham about the middle of the pre- 
ceding century. The present feminine Lord of that 
name, whose absence from England had precluded any 
acquaintance with the protege of his father’s quizzy 
neighbour Sir Richard Raymond, advanced to beg Mary 
would present him to her brother; and Harry soon found 
himself carried oft' to a window, after the fashion of the 
Ilderfield set, to whisper away the remainder of the 
evening in the most unmeaning mystery, instead of be- 
ing able to deliver to Sir Richard the newspapers, and 
.letters, and parcels, and messages he had charged hin\' 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


Seif withall ot* to her ladyship the product of the innu- 
merable commissions he had executed at her bidding. 
It would have been long enough before Burford conde- 
scended to become postman to his old father, or light 
porter to his old mother! — no wonder he had the mor- 
tification of perceiving how much more welcome at 
Langdale was the arrival of his tall, frank, handsome, 
animated, good-humoured, genuine cousin, — than his 
own frigid, selfish, well-bred, supercilious entree. He 
could have forgiven them all except Lady Caroline II- 
derfieldi — but really she might have known better! 


CHAPTER IV. 


Should any novice in the rhyming trade 
With lawless pen the realms of verse invade. 
Forth from the court whefe sceptred sages sit— 
Abused with praise and flattered into wit— 
Legions of factious authors start. 


CnoRCHiLt.; 


When Burford Raymond announced himself to be 
tinder the necessity of returning to town the day fol- 
lowing the arrival of Harry at Langdale House, *1^ 
ver occurred to his kind-hearted old father and mother 
that jealousy of his young relative was the motive ot 
this sudden journey; so little indeed^ that Sir Richard 
actually presumed to inquire Whether he could not re- 
main another day or two, and take back Henry, w o 
had only a week’s leave of absence. , , t. ^ u 
“It is my intention, sir, to go round by JNewbury^ 
and sleep at Lord Rawford’s.” , 

“So much the better!— I am sure my friend Kaw- 
ford will be very glad to see the boy.” 

“It does not enter into my plan, sir, to impose the 
company of Mr. Henry Raymond, or that ^ 

member of his family, on the patience of those who 
only endure it from respect to ourselves. 


84 


THE ELIRT 


“I fancy you wiH fiml,” replied his father, some- 
what tartly, “ that very little of the respect due to our* 
selves is encroached upon for patience to bear the com- 
pany of a fine, likely, manly fellow like Harry, or of a 
beautiful girl like Mary. Nature has given them a let- 
ter of introduction, that makes them welcome wherever 
they go.” 

Burford Raymond’s departure was evidently a relief 
to every one at Langdale, even to the worthy old baro- 
net and his wifej who, proud as they were of their only 
son, could not but perceive that he considered himself 
advanced a century before themselves in refinement and 
knowledge of the world, as well as a whole class above 
them in personal importance. Even the warm-hearted 
Henry, who involuntarily included every thing at 
Langdale in his gratitude to the founder of his fortunes, 
was painfully embarrassed by the awkwardness of his 
position relative to his ungracious kinsman; and as to 
Mary, however guarded on the subject in presence of 
Sir Richard and the old lady, she disguised neither 
from her brother nor herself, that Mr. Raymond was 
her physical and moral aversion.— He was so ugly, so 
hard, so coolly insolent! — What was his conventional 
reputation to herp — 

One of the first objects of her first t^te-a-tete with 
Henry, after due inquiries touching the health and hap- 
piness of the little dove’s nest at Fulham, was to ascer- 
tain how much was to be held authentic of Lady Caro- 
line Ilderfield*s portrait of their cousin Adela; whether 
he had seen much of Lady Germaine,— and whether— 
but no! she had not courage to interrogate him concern- 
ing his feelings towards them both. Harry, mean 
while, was little inclined to trifle with her curiosity. 
No sooner had he given his bulletin of Margaret’s win- 
ter-cough, and his opinion of the extraordinary deve- 
lopment of Jane’s musical talents, than he commenced, 
in a voice that did not tremble much — only a little in 
the beginning of the history— a narrative of Miss Rich- 
mond’s conduct towards him; and it was with wonder 
and indignation that Mary heard how Adela had long 
since dismissed him to the footing of a common ac- 
quaintance; how much she had been admired and fol- 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


85 


lowed during the season; and how eagerly both Lady 
Germaine and herself, had shown themselves for the in- 
crease of her followers and admirers. 

“ Lady Caroline’s assertion then is true, that Adela 
has become a most decided flirt?” 

“ Quite true; — and she is still so beautiful!” 

“And that she has been absolutely laying siege to 
the attentions of men who had shown no pretensions to 
her favour?” 

“Exactly; but Adela^is surrounded by willing vota- 
ries; by men who would lay down their lives for her!” 

“ And she will accept none of them?” 

“Lady Germaine is the accepting party in these 
matters; and I can perceive that the sensation Adela 
has produced in society, has inflated her ambition be- 
yond all bounds. That she should disregard my at- 
tachment to her daughter, and that which, I presume, 
to believe her daughter once entertained for me, I can 
forgive; perhaps, it was her maternal duty to act as she 
has done towards us. But several of Miss Richmond’s 
new admirers are men of rank,— several of them men 
of fortune, — and — ” 

“ Any of them men of merit?” inquired Mary, with 
a look of grave indignation. 

“ That is a point of indifference to my aunt. Of two 
things she would prefer a roue to a saint, lest Adela 
should be withdrawn from the stare of society, and her 
own amusements be interfered with by her son-in-law. 
But wealth and high blood are indispensable qualifica- 
tions; and till they unite in some pretendant to my 
cousin’s hand, Adela’s opinion of her host of lovers will 
never even be asked.” 

Mean while, she will go flirting on, and become 
heartless and frivolous, and — ” 

“Everything a woman of fashion ought to be! — 
Lady Germaine is enchanted with her daughter’s im- 
provement in looks and manners; while Margaret and 
Jane, (in a glimpse they had of her in a morning visit 
at the old Duchess of Rockwell’s) thought her sadly al- 
tered for the wprse: — still beautiful, as Adela always 
must be, — ^but so artificial, — so mamcrce/” 

“Poor Adela!” exclaimed Mary, “I fear we shall 
live to see her a disappointed and unhappy woman.” 

VoL. I. 8 " 


86 


THE FLIRT 


“ And what is all this Sir Richard has been tellinjr 
me about Lord Stoneham, my dear Mary?”^ — retorted 
her brother, eager to divert the conversation from 
Adela’s crimes and misdemeanors. “Lady Raymond 
is of opinion that you have made a most important con- 
quest.’’ 

“Self-important she means. Yes, my dear Henry, 
Lord Stoneham actually condescends to speak to me, 
look at me, and honour me by his languid smiles of ap- 
probation; to hint to me that it is not absolutely impos- 
sible he may deign to overlook the monstrous dispropor- 
tion between us; and what is still more extraordinary, 
he has a father, mother, and sister, stupid enough to 
conceive it possible I shall profit by his excess of con- 
descension, and be alarmed lest I should snatch at the 
opportunity of becoming Duchess of Dronington ! — Silly 
people!” 

“ They do not kno\^ my little Mary’s spirit and 
sense of her. own dignity,” said Henry, laughing at her 
indignant air. “ But s/ie, too, has a mother and sisters, 
and on this occasion, must not wholly overlook their 
interests.” 

“How, Henry! — Have you also been perverted by 
Lady Germaine’s admonitions, to become the advocate 
of mercenary marriages?” 

“Far from it!~heaven know’s, I should be sorry to 
see a sister of mine united to a prince on such tempta- 
tions. But Lord Stoneham is highly spoken of in the 
world as an honourable, gentlemanly young man; and I 
should regret that you threw away the chance of a hap- 
py and prosperous marriage, on the mere pique of a 
young lady’s wounded consequence, or for the sake of 
prejudices excited against him by Burford Raymond’s 
sneers.' Do not be precipitate, ray dear Mary.” 

Yet, in spite of these brotherly cautions, Mary was 
precipitate. Disgusted by the air of nonchalance with 
which, after Harry’s departure for London, the youn<»* 
Marquis was in the hab'it of establishing himself rnorm 
ing after morning in “ the parlour,” with Lady R. her 
pug worsted work and poor relation, and by the rigid 
austerity of demeanour preserved towards her on every 
occasion by all the members of the Dronington family, 
she closed her eyes and heart against the professions of 


OF TEN SEASONS, 


87 


ardent devotion with whicli Lord Stoneham finally ten- 
dered himself and his brilliant prospects to her accep- 
tance; and even uttered her decisive rejection without 
one qualifying compliment — one expression of gratitude 
for his affection! — The amazement of the. ducal tribe 
knew no bounds. Scarcely could her Aunt Germaine 
have been more astonished at the notion of the heir of 
the Droningtons meeting with a repulse in such a quar- 
ter; and even Sir Richard and Lady Raymond, although 
they secretly avowed to each otiier a suspicion that 
Mary’s magnanimous disinterestedness arose solely 
1 from a predilection for their own incomparable son,— 

I the old bachelor of the Albany, — were almost inclined 
I to wonder that even Burford Raymond should be able 
to cast into the shade the supereminent grandeur and 
dignity of Dronington Manor. It was made an especial 
request to them by their lovely protegee that no rumour 
of the circumstance should transpire. She was parti- 
cularly anxious that her mother should not be vexed by 
a knowledge of the difficulty she had found in sacrificing 
her own inclination — her own pride— rfor the advantage 
of her family. With one brotlier a lieutenant of artil- 
lery, another an ensign in the Guards, and a third, at 
Haileybury College preparing for banishment to Madras, 
she felt almost unpardonable for having entertained any 
scruples about becoming a duchess. 

It is not to be supposed that the baronet copartite 
thought it necessary to disappoint its paternal and ma- 
ternal vanity by keeping the fact, and its own surmises 
thereupon, a secret from Burford Raymond. Sir Ri- 
chard on his next meeting with his son, frankly declared 
his opinion that the beautiful Mary had cheerfully sa- 
crificed her brilliant prospects to a hopeless attachment 
for the topographer of Troy; while Mr. Raymond 
looked grave — was very sorry for her — begged that his 
mother would remonstrate with the young person on 
her absurd infatuation — and seriously assured his father 
that something better was expected of him in society 
than to throw himself away on so obscure an individual. 
He said nothing, however, of his long concocted scheme 
of increasing his county consequence by an alliance 
with Lady Caroline Ilderfield; and maintained a similar 
caution when, three months afterwards, his proposals to 


88 


THE FLIRT 


that effect were very pompously declined by his Grace, 
her father. The Droningtons were delighted with an 
opportunity of giving blow for blow, refusal for refusal, 
to their presumptuous neighbours of Langdale House. 

Whatever might be Burford’s mortifacation on the 
subject, it was not of the garrulous order. He never 
was heard to mention Lady Caroline’s name again; and 
as the Droningtons belonged to a very different London 
set from that in which he had so long flourished his lau- 
rels, he returned to his usual circle to say and eat good 
things, to be admired, quoted, invited, and listened to, 
w ithout any apprehension of finding his disappointment 
the subject of a lampoon: — when, lo! a circumstance 
occurred which set the reading public, and more parti- 
cularly that little literary ant-hill in which Burford Ray- 
mond was a fetcher and carrier of straws, into an up- 
roar of wonder and investigation. 

A poem made its appearance, unenhanced by any 
claptrap on the part of its publisher, — unannounced as 
the work of any illustrious and mysterious individual, 
or of one of the muses living in lodgings in May Fair, 
— of O. P. Q., or the ghost of Lord Byron. Yet in 
spite of this unostentatious dehut, it was hailed by the 
critics, both professional and honorary, as the finest 
thing that had startled the public mind for years. — 
Rogers acknowledged its perfection, Holland House 
echoed its praises; and even the Quarterly Review had 
neither a misplaced comma nor a questionable moral 
sentiment to detect. It was sterling, — admitted at 
sight among the classics of English literature! 

Yet no one fathered the bantling. Its fame grew 
and grew; edition after edition issued from the press; 
but not a syllable transpired respecting its authorship. 
Burford Raymond, like all the rest of the tittle-tat- 
tlingcblues, was in a fever of curiosity. He would 
have given much for only a distant surmise of the wri- 
ter, to whisper about as a novelty among the members 
of his wondering coterie. He forgot his disastrous 
suit, and even Mary Raymond’s unhappy passion for 
himself, in the eagerness of canvassing, criticising, 
quoting, applauding, and conjecturing; his whole mind 
was filled with interest respecting the “ prodigy that 
had made its appearance in the republic of letters. 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


89 


His Dorsetshire neighbour, Remington Compton, even 
earned some credit with him by the able manner in 
tvhich he set forth its merits in a spirited article in the 
Edinburgh Reviewj — in a word, poor Burford could 
neither eat, drink, nor sleep, except with reference to 
the poem. 

The Baronet his father, and his mother, was serious- 
ly afflicted by seeing him so strangely absoi-bed by a 
matter which left them very little hope of a realization 
of their matrimonial projects; and would gladly have 
seen the tuneful Nine drowned in their own Helicon, 
to make way for Mary, or some other mundane damsel 
of equal merit. They had very little suspicion how 
mighty was the influence likely to be exercised by the 
new poem and its writer, over the conjugal destinies of 
their son. 


. CHAPTER V. 


Women who, confident and self-possessed, 

By vanity’s unwearied finger dress’d. 

Forget the blush that virgin fears impart 
To modest cheeks, and borrow one from art— 

Are just such trifles, without worth or use, 

As silly pride and vanity produce ; 

Curl’d, scentod, furbelow’d, and flounced around. 

With feet too delicate to touch the ground. 

CowpEa. 

The beautiful Adela, mean while, was passing a most 
brilliant season at Brighton. In the illuminated sa- 
loons of the Pavilion, (at that period enlivened by the 
voluptupus court of George IV.) her loveliness and ele- 
gance found a congenial atmosphere; and the most re- 
fined of modern princes was heard to pronounce to 
Lady Germaine a verdict equally flattering and dis- 
cerning on the charms of her graceful daughter. 

Adela, delighted with herself and all around her, in- 
creased every day in attractions— and pretensions! Af- 


90 


THE FLIRT 


ter flirting through the winter, under a persuasion that a 
degree of popularity such as hers admitted of a relaxation 
of merely speculative views,— that she, under whose feet 
admirers started up at every step, might venture to 
amuse herself for a time without any direct regard to the 
special license and the diamond necklace, — returned to 
town just before Easter, eager to start on the course of 
London dissipation. When, just as she had prepared 
her finery for the season, her grandmother, the only 
surviving relative of Lady Germaine, was attacked by 
a severe, and, as the physicians thought proper to as- 
sert, a mortal illness. But it was not the prospect of 
its mortality which so roused the sympathy of Adela; — 
the malady was lingenng as well as dangerous; and as 
grandmamma not only chanced to have some liUle pro- 
perty at her disposal, but was an elderly lady of consi- 
derable testiness and tenaciousness on points of per- 
sonal respect, Adela was condemned to seclusion till 
the crisis of her ladyship’s death or recovery. Her 
white crape, like the green leaves in the song, “all 
turned yellow;” and instead of Almacks and Kensing- 
ton Gardens, she was obliged to purr away the months 
of May, June, and July, in attendance on a fractious 
narrow-minded old woman; who, after all, thought pro- 
per to disavow the decree of the Doctors, disappoint 
her annuitants, and reassume the control of her own 
banker’s book. The murmurs vented by Lady Ger- 
maine on the occasion it is needless to transcribe. Un- 
thinking woman!— She had no hesitation in offering to 
her own daughter the heinous example of filial ingrati- 
tude!— 

^ And thus the month of August found Adela unwea- 
ried by the vigils of a single ball, unperplexed by the 

suit of a single worshipper. “ Bronze, Esq., 

and Lady Emily Bronze,” were announced as having 
departed to Italy on a bridal tour; Lady Westerham’s 
wedding-clothes were exhibiting on all the counters in 
London; and Colonel Rawford was to be seen ridino- 
every day in the Park with his bride-elect, the fashion^ 
able widow Lady Harman. Lord Stoneham was gone 
abroad; and of all her votaries, the only one at home, 
and still disengaged, was the contemned Henry Ray- 
mond,— with whom chance brought her occasionally in 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


91 


contact during Lady Germaine’s confinement with her 
invalid mother. But although Adela Richmond thought 
proper to accept his arm in her solitary walk in Ken- 
sington Gardens, while her carriage waited at the gate; 
although she extended her hand for the rose which eve- 
ry day he brought as a sentimental pledge to his beauti- 
ful cousin; and endured, if she did not precisely re- 
turn, the pressure lavished by the young guardsman on 
her hand at parting, she had not the slightest intention 
of accepting himself: — her views were unaltered. She 
readily acceded to her mother’s proposal of an airing 
to Fulham soon after the old lady’s recovery, without a 
suspicion that Lady Germaine’s sudden intention of vi- 
siting “ those Raymonds,” arose from a discovery that 
the son of Henry’s patron was still unmarried, — still 
to be had with the positive reversion of ten thousand 
per annum, a baronetcy, and the option of a peerage. 
Having heard Burford Raymond considerably quoted 
in the beaumonde since the abdication of Brummell I., 
she took it into her head to ascertain from’ her sister-in- 
law “ what sort of a person was the son of that excel- 
lent creature Sir Richard?” — or, in other words, whe- 
ther he were likely to prove an eligible match for Ade- 
la. Miss Richmond was notv in her twentieth year; 
and her ladyship began to think it time she should be 
•settled in life. The amiable couple put on a plausible 
face as they drove to the door; mutually observing that 
“ it was a tremendous long time since they had been 
there, but that they must make the best of it.” Lady 
Germaine sailed magnificently through the little flower- 
garden, and Adela followed, with her accustomed 
mincing step of aff’ectation; assuming the air— as they 
always did on occasion of their visits to “those Ray- 
monds of descending goddesses, irradiating with 
their presence some scene of vulgar mortality. 

But they soon found there was no occasion to make 
the best of it. “Those Raymonds” were very well ^ 
contented to accept the worst. The active, virtuous, 
frugal mother entertained so much contemptuous com- 
passion for the fine-lady widow of her brother, that she 
had no inclination to declare war against her neglect or 
her insolence; while her daughters, really loving and 
really pitying their cousin Adela, received her with 


92 


THE FLIRT 


all their usual smiles, if _not their usual cordiality. It 
is possible they might feel inclined (particularly Mar- 
garet) to resent her hard-heartedness towards their bro- 
ther; but Harry invariably made it his entreaty that 
they would not on his account withdraw their good will 
from the child of his earliest benefactor. 

Somewhat surprised by their Christian forbearance, 
Lady Germaine was still more astonished at the re- 
markable change visible in the establishment of her sis- 
ter-in-law. That look of indigence which was wont to 
jar so painfully against her own self-love, had entirely 
disappeared. There was an appearance of comfort, of 
even elegance, in the sitting-room — of care and cultiva- 
tion in the lawn; while the dress and air of the three 
sisters we ' * ferior in fashion to that of Adela 



herself. 


come prepared to patronise, to 


instruct, to depreciate, saw occasion to amend her own 
taste on a survey of “ those Raymonds” and their little 
fairy palace. Moreover, she found Mr. Compton esta- 
blished among them on the most familiar footing; a man 
who, though only the son of a new peer, had already 
placed himself on a pedestal of his own, as one of the 
most eminent speakers and writers of the day; and while 
Adela was still wondering to which of her three cousins 
his homage was addressed, she was startled by Henry’s 
arrival, and the warm greeting bestowed upon him by 
his family. 

“I have brought you a present, dearest mother,” said 
he, secretly pleased with an opportunity of elevating 
her in presence of the scornful Lady Germaine; “I 
have received a letter this morning from Lord Stone- 
ham, who is now at Rome, begging me to solicit in his 
name your acceptance of this box of cameos. They 
seem very fine, and in sufficient abundance to gratify 
the vanity of yonder three silly girls.” 

“Very fine indeed!” said Lady Germaine, looking 
the other way as Mrs. Raymond opened the casket, and 
offered it for her inspection. 

“Very beautiful indeed,— if any one could devise a 
method of making them either useful or ornamental,” 
echoed Adela. 

“At present they are chiefly useful,” observed Mr. 
Compton, significantly, “in proving that my friend 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


93 


Stoneham has a constant as well as a tender heart— I 
honour him.” 

And as he uttered this oracular sentence, Adela 
looked again most earnestly towards her cousins, to as- 
certain which of the three betrayed consciousness on 
the occasion. But again she was at fault. Margaret 
and Jane loved Mary too dearly not to blush as deeply 
as herself on any allusion to a subject so interesting to 
her feelings. Adela was completely puzzled! — -Nor 
did Lady Germaine manage to enlighten herself in a 
more satisfactory manner with respect to the heir of 
Langdale House. All the interrogations, direct and 
indirect, she could venture to address to her sister-in- 
law on the subject, only availed to inform her that Bur- 
ford Raymond was about to pass the autumn in Dor- 
setshire; that Mary, Margaret, and Jane, had been in- 
vited severally and collectively to visit Sir Richard and 
Lady Raymond during the peripd of his stay; and that 
each and all preferred accompanying their mother to 
the Isle of Wight, whither the whole of the family was 
on the point of adjourning. 

Lady Germaine now rose to depart in a very dl hu- 
ll mour. But while Harry was most assiduous in oller- 
] ing his arm to convey her to the carriage, Mr. Comp- 
ton remained fixed in his seat; and instead of attending 
i Adela to the door, drew his chair closer to the table 
i with that air of release after the thraldom of a formal 
I visit, which plainly says, “Now you are going, we 
shall all be very comfortable.” She began to feel her- 
self ill-used ;--to decide that there was something odd, 
something wrong about “those Raymonds.” 
could they mean by such proceedings?— the son ot Lord 
Soho dangling after those portionless girls!— She would 
take care that the parents of that flippant, easy Mr. 
Remington Compton received due hint and warning ot 

the business. . , , 

And then, the girls!— Mary was growing very hand- 
some to be sure; but however rich the ringlets of her 
hair, what pretension had she to a coinb like Adela s. 
—Jane was a very pretty little girl, \yth a foot of the 
dimensions of Cinderella’s; but was that ^ 
her French gaiters should resemble those of Miss Hich- 
mond.^— As for Mrs. Raymond herself, nothing could 


94 


the flirt 


be plainer than that she was either running in debt on 
the chance of making an advantageous marriage for one 
of her daughters^ or that she was herself privately mar- 
ried to that great lumbering yellow nabob old Orme, who 
had been so anxious to make her his own shortly after 
poor Raymond’s decease. Lady Germaine desired her 
daughter would take an opportunity of cross-question- 
ing Henry on all these matters. 

While the Fulham family were enjoying at once the 
brilliancy of their own prospects and those of the Isle 
of Wight, Adela and her mother found theipselves most 
unsatisfactorily planted for the autumn in a dull dowa- 
ger house of grandmamma’s, a place very unpropitious 
to any thing like match-making; a dwelling over whose 
gateway Lady Germaine, the manceuvrer, saw inscribed, 

Lasciate ogni progetto voi ch’ entrate! 

There was, however, some consolation in this inoppor- 
tune exile. Her daughter was secure at Colston from 
any communication with her cousin Henry; ran no 
chance of collision with “ those Raymonds;” and after 
five months of drowsy retirement, was likely to re-ap- 
pear in the world more radiant, more beautiful than 
ever. 

But Lady Germaine relied too fondly on the good ef- 
fects of country air, regular hours, and regular habits. 
Albeit herself considerably versed in the arts and mys- 
teries of beauty or beautification, she overlooked the 
fact so manifest to less prejudiced eyes, that there is a 
softness, delicacy, purity, and transparency connected 
with extreme youth, — a smile of girlhood, — a glance of 
perfect artlessness, which is seldom to be found after 
the 31st of December of their tw'entieth year; a charm 
which, evanescent as a rainbow, departs with the teens, 
and is incompatible with the maturer pride of beautiful 
one-and-twenty. To a blonde like Adela, the epoch is 
arbitrary-. The slightest blemish traceable on the snow 
destroys its dazzling brightness; and though Miss Rich- 
mond might still claim precedence as one of the finest 
girls in London — as graceful, elegant, and accomplished 
—that overpowering brilliancy of beauty which had 
marked her debut^ was gone and for ever. 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


95 


Wholly unaware of the change, and possessing, it 
must be owned, strong incentives to vanity in the ad- 
miration which greeted her re-appearance in society at 
the commencement of the following season (Adela’s 
third in town,) Lady Germaine opened the campaign 
with a serious determination to render it decisive. Her 
daughter had amused hel’^elf too long, — it was now time 
for business; and severe instructions were issued from 
the war-office that everynerve should be strained, every 
resource put into activity to secure the field. But, alas! 
her ladyship forgot that the tactics of great command- 
ers reject. all this parade — this 

Pomp and circumstance, of glorious war — 

and no sooner did the detrimentals perceive that Adela 
had been required to evade the claims of former part- 
ners, and reserve her smiles for the etat major of the 
eligibles, than they enrolled themselves in the “young- 
er brothers’ union,” and placed her for the first time 
on the muster-roll of the marrying young ladies. They 
soon forgot the beautiful, the radiant Adela Richmond, 
in the daughter of the finessing Lady Germaine. 


CHAPTER Vr. 


Where old simplicity. 

Though hid in gray 
Doth look more gay 
Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad. 

Randolph^ 

Mean while an event occurred in the Raymond fami- 
ly, which though a source of real affliction among them, 
would have assumed a very difterent aspect but for the 
judicious steadiness of purpose which had induced Sir 
Richard to pre-assure a provision for his young kins- 
man. Half (the masculine half) of the good old Baro- 


96 


THE FT.IRT 


net died!— died, as the newspapers say, “deeply re- 
gretted by his disconsolate family and a large circle of 
surviving friends.” 

Seldom indeed is so favourable a verdict pronounced 
by the jury of society on one of its departed member^, 
as in the case of Sir Richard Raymond. However slen- 
derly endowed with those capacities and acquirements, 
constituting, in the^opinion of the Droningtons and his 
erudite son, the character of “an English gentleman,” 
the old man contrived to leave behind him a widow 
rcflZ/i/ disconsolate, — really satisfied that her business 
in life was over, — that nothing remained for her but the 
family vault; an estate increased by two-fifths in value 
since his accession; an orphan relative, raised to an ho- 
nourable position in society through his interposition 
and generosity; a circle of neighbours, among whom he 
had never introduced an evil word or evil feeling; and 
a body of tenanfry the most prosperous and contented 
to be met with in the county. After all, he certainly 
could dispense with the reputation of having Bernasco- 
nied the staring red fagade of Langdale House, or in- 
troduced new ottomans and claw tables into its com- 
fortless parlour; more especially since some hundreds 
of acres on Langdale Chase were converted into thriving 
woodlands during. his reign. 

The good old gray-headed man was laid in his grave 
amid the tears of the young and the reverent stillness 
of the old. On the Sunday following his interment, 
not an eye in Langdale Church could fix itself on the 
black hangings on Dr. Docket’s pulpit. The people 
felt chilled, desolate, abandoned. Their friend was 
gone; — their good kind friend, who had lived among 
them so much more as a father than as a magistrate or 
a landlord. It may be questioned whether the demise 
of the best classic of all the universities, English, 
Scotch, or Metropolitan, would have produced half so 
many aching hearts. 

On opening the will, it was a matter of equal sur- 
prise and regret to the executors and the leading gen- 
tlemen of the neighbourhood, that Sir Richard, whose 
estates were unentailed, had made no contingent provi- 
sion for their reversion to Harry Raymond in case of 
Sir Burford’s decease, unmarried or childless. No- 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


97 


thing could be more apparent to them all than the dis- 
taste cherished by the present Baronet against his fa- 
ther’s favourite, unless the fact that Sir Burford would 
certainly live and die a bachelor; and there was no cal- 
culating to whom the peevish jealousy of his narrow 
mind might instigate him to bequeath the family proper- 
ty, in order to avoid the possibility of benefiting “those 
l^ymonds.” He detested them almost as much as Lady 
Germaine; regarding Mary’s insolent conquest of the 
Marquis of Stoneham as the chief source of his own 
rejection by Lady Caroline Ilderfield; and Harry’s in- 
ordinate popularity with the thrones and dominions of 
Dorsetshire, as the principal cause of the coldness tes- 
tified towards himself. He ascribed nothing to the evil 
influence of that supercilious self-opiniated egotism 
which rendered him so uncompanionable and so unlove- 
able; qualifying him far better for his sullen selfish 
chambers in Albany, than for the presidency of a house 
and estate such as that of Langdaie. 

But although the father had judged it illiberal to 
shackle the property of his son with other conditions 
than those under which it had descended to himself, he 
felt at liberty to bequeath to Harry (at the death of 
Lady Raymond) a small estate in Kent, which had 
lately fallen to himself by the will of a frientl; and to 
each of the Raymond girls an annuity of fifty pounds 
per annum. It was not much, — not more than Sir 
Burford could very well spare from his twelve or four- 
teen thousand per annum; yet those who fancied they 
knew him best, asserted that Sir Richard could not 
have taken a more infallible- method to alienate , his 
son’s regard from the lamily, and to obliterate all 
chance of the eventual accession of his fiivourite Harry 
to the heirless dignities of Langdaie. It was said fliat 
he did not invite yoirTig Raymond to re-enter the house 
which had been so long his home, after the melancholy 
ceremony of his benefactor’s interment; and that his 
earliest exhortation to the remaining moiety of the Ba- 
i^onet, — the disconsolate relict of Sir Richard, — regard- 
ed a cessation of intercourse with the needy kindred 
on whom she had been accustometl to lavish so much 
kindness and liberality. All tills was said;— and if 

VoL. I. 9 


98 


THE FLIRT 


true, certainly reflected no credit on the learned pun- 
dit. 

Mean while, Sir Burford Raymond’s dehut in London, 
enrobed in his new dignities, was almost as important 
an enterprise as that of Lady Germaine’s daughter. 

Dearly as he loved the importance affixed by his o>vn 
exertions to the name he had earned in society, he was 
by no means insensible to the charm of being Sir Bur- 
forded^ and, partial as he avowed himself to his bache- 
lor chambers, the bustle and anxieties of purchasing 
and inhabiting a magnificent mansion in May Fair, af- 
forded a charming excitement to his jaded mind. The 
finicalities of furnishing, picture-dealing, and collect- 
ing old china and scarce books, were in fact exactly 
consonant with the fiddle-faddle tone of his character. 
He had no gratification in the possession of a fine Van- 
dyke, Aldus, or Cellini, at all equal to that derived 
from the flummery of the auctioneers, dealers, and col- 
lectors, gathered around him by the officiousness of the 
Rev. Nicodemus Fagg; and the incense of a little levee 
of the meanest order of literati, — the grubs which are 
generated and fed upon the laurel. He liked to see his 
purchases and proceedings noticed in the papers^ and- 
never prized his Baronetship so highly as when it illu- 
minated the proceedings of some learned body with the 
announcement of “ Sir Burford Raymond, Bart., in the 
chair.” 

This flattering unction was soothing enough as far as 
it wentj but it was not all-sufficient to a man of such 
unbounded stomach in the vanities of life. The man- 
sion in May Fair when completed, — with all its Etrus- 
can cornices and Vitruvian mouldings, its Parian and 
gold-veined marbles, its jasper pedestals and columns 
of'porphyry, its Flemish school and Italian scliool, it^ 
Phidian gallery and Canova vestibule, its Gobelin ta- 
pestry and Venetian pier-glasses, — was found wanting 
in one of the most important adjuncts of a noble man- 
sion. The Venus of Medicis stood in her appointed 
niche, the Venus of Thorwaldson lay sporting amid her 
roses; and many a nymph, and many a beauteous saint, 
and many a goddess smiled from the lofty walls upon 
the little baronet. But no animated nymph, no god- 
dess in a gown oi gros de Naples^ displayed her round- 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


99 


ed contour or graceful brows in the dull silent cham- 
bers. Such a one was not to be purchased at the curi- 
osity shops, nor selected through a magnifying glass in 
Christie’s roomsj and Sir Burford discovered that in 
the event of his making up his mind to complete his 
collection by the purchase of a wife, he must go forth 
Faggless into society, frequent the ball-room, the ope- 
ra, the park, and descend for a time from the altitudes 
of his uncontrolled self-importance. 

His chief object in such an undertaking was to mor- 
tify Lady Caroline llderfiekL Still unmarried and 
verging towards the scraggy, loveless joyless epoch, of 
iive-and-thirty, the Duke of Dronington’s daughter had 
more than once been tempted to lament her father’s 
pompous rejection of her Dorsetshire neighbour’s son; 
and now, on his re-appearance in the world under such 
brilliant auspices, made up her mind to attempt the re- 
novation of his passion.*— She might as well have un- 
dertaken the re-vivification of a mummy! — On the 
whole, indeed, although the remembrance of his disap- 
pointment still rankled in his mind, he felt no reason 
to regret the appointment or disappointment of his ma- 
trimonial destinies. He now considered himself far 
above the necessity of deriving conventional dignity 
from the alliance of any ladyship in the land; and was 
of opinion that the mind of Lady Caroline Iklerjheld 
was not sufficiently cultivated nor her tastes sufficient- 
ly classical to make her acceptable as the presiding de- 
ity of the temple lie had created: — she had once spoken 
of Cicero in his hearing as a Greek poet! — To his per- 
ceptions, nothing could exceed the importance of his 
own circle, — of the orbit in which for many years past 
he had been revolving so entirely to his own satisfac- 
tion: and it would have given him little pleasure to be- 
hold any one of his twenty-seven Venuses Pygmal ion- 
ized for his sake, had he been pre-assured that the new 
mortal would prove insufficiently intellectual and ac- 
complished for the atmosphere of his literary coterie. 

Such was the man on whom Lady Germaine under- 
took to make an impression in favour of her beautiful 
daughter; such the being for whom Adela was instruct- 
ed to clothe her brow in wisdom, and attune her dis- 


100 


THE FLIRT 


course to the jargon of May Fair philosophy. The ac- 
quaintance was soon made, and followed up by an in- 
vitation to dinner on her ladyship’s part,- and a request 
on that of Sir Burfortl that the ladies would condescend 
to come and view his pictures^ and not even op a first 
introduction, not even while still unfamiliar with -his 
narrow countenance, and mean graceless person, did 
Adela dream of comparing him disadvantageously with 
his handsome namesake, her youthful playmate, her de- 
voted cousin Harry. She could see nothing ugly or 
disagreeable in Sir Burford. Was he not a man or fif- 
teen thousand a-year, — a town house and country seat; 
and had he not been for twenty years past a somebody 
in society, a person univ'ersally accepted? — In a word, 
was he not a very good match? — 

It was really amusing, — at least it would hav^e amused 
any one but Nicodemus Fagg, who was alone present 
on the occasion, and was too much of a manoeuvrer on 
his own account to see any matter for jest in the avidity 
of others, — to observe the inventorial eye with which 
Lady Germaine made the tour of Sir Burford’s man- 
sion. All that she saw or heard was with reference to 
Adela, to a liberal settlement, to a widow’s thirds. 
What cared she for Paestuib or Pompeii, — or w'hether 
the Guido to which her observation was directed by 
Sir Burford, had originally graced the Houghton col- 
lection or the Lanfranchi palace? — While her host was 
talking to her of the incense-pots and paterae in use 
among the Phoenicians, exhibiting an unimpugnable 
specimen of Corinthian metal, or rehearsing the beau- 
ties of the sardonyx of Poly crates while he paraded a 
chalice adorned w'ith studs of (hat precious gem, — Lady 
Germaine was secretly reverting to the possibility that 
all these treasures might be made heir-looms, and alien- 
ated from the personality so precious to the cupidity of 
widowhood. The only interest vouchsafed by the do- 
wager to the objects placed before her eyes, arose from 
a doubt concerning their reconvertibility into the cur- 
rency from whence they sprang; the only care enter- 
tained by the daughter, in surveying the home she was 
already determined to render her own, arose from in- 
certitude, whether a suite so encumbered with objects 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


101 


of virtu, were favourable to fashionable hospitality? — 
She almost doubted whether Sir Burford would not 
prove too blue to be a giver of balls. 

But this was a minor point to Lady Germaine. The 
Honourable Lady Raymond, of Langdale House and 
Seamore Place, would be quite enough of a personage 
to satisfy her ambition for her daughter. Sir Burford, 
it is true, was a twaddler, — a man of a circle; — but he 
w'ould the less interfere with the amusements and va- 
nities of his young wife. She made it appear pretty 
plainly, (so plainly that even Nicodemus could deci- 
pher the text without spectacles) that t\iQ__cognoscente 
had only to propose, to be enabled to add the prettiest 
woman in London to his collection of rarities. 

Why did he hesitate? — Was he aware that the exist- 
ence of his handsome cousin of the Guards might inter- 
pose a dangerous obstacle to his conjugal happiness? — 
Did it occur to him that twenty and four and forty, are 
epochs divided by twenty-four fatal anniversaries of 
moral nature? — that the bright ringlets of the fashiona- 
ble belle were less accordant with the outline of his 
own bald pate, than the heads of- Paris and Helen in 
his favourite intaglio? — that 

Middle age and youth . 

Cannot live together? — 

that the Almack’s goddess, the nymph of the park, 
would certainly have experienced little inclination for 
a niche in his gallery, had it not been for the splendour 
of the car on which her journey thither was to be exe- 
cuted? — No! he thought of none of these things! — Re- 
ganling himself as the most attractive of mankind, as a 
partie inferior only to the Duke of Derbyshire, he still 
hesitated, from secret motives, to throw the Satrap ker- 
chief of election to the lovely Adela Richmond. This 
vacillation of mind was- extremely tiresome and per- 
plexing to Lady Germaine. What was the man about? 
Opulent, independent, in every sense his own master, 
what could prevent him from accelerating an event, 
which forty-four years subtracted from three-score left 
him so little leisure to -enjoy? Perhaps, he was break- 
in«- oft* some unsatisfactory connexion; — perhaps, he 
° 9 * 


102 


• THE FLIRT 


was building a carriage, — perhaps, a wigj — but why 
not propose ad interim and terminate the dilemma? 
Still he went on accepting her ladyship’s dinner parties, 
— sitting nailed to a chair at the back of her ladyship’s 
opera-box, — calling her ladyship’s carriage: — but why 
not propose? — Could it be respect to the memory of his 
father, which suggested the delay of so festive a rite as 
the hymeneal? Absurd! — impossible! — in the nine- 
teenth century, and a man so intellectual. No! no! 
Sir Burford Raymond was too much of a philosopher 
for the old woman’s prejudice of filial tenderness. 

May passed away, — June came and went with its 
roses, — strawberries were already out of season (except 
for the “lower classes”) and cherries were becoming 
plebeian food; — yet no proposal!-^ ' ^ 



grew* angry; and began to lament 


Lord Germaine, was still at Eton, and too juvenile to 
be alarming either as a rival or antagonist. Certainly 
the conduct of Sir Burford was such as to call for ex- 
planation. For three months he had entirely engrossed 
her daughter’s attention. He must have seen that in 
compliment to his mute courtship,* Adela had remained 
sedentary at half the balls of the season; had given up 
waltzing, riding, flirting; had sobered herself down to 
the decorum of the middle-aged Strephon; — had as- 
sumed the sententious prosiness of the learned fellow, 
the demure gravity of the “English gentleman.” She 
had forfeited half her natural graces by forming herself 
on the model oT a Dorsetshire Baronetess! All this 
was lost time, unless the head of the house of Raymond 
had serious intentions. Another season was gone; — 
gone in fruitless manoeuvres, and most unsatisfactory 
self-denial. It was difficult to say whether Lady Ger- 
maine were most irate against Sir Burford, her daugh- 
ter, or herself. 

In the midst of her misgivings and vexations, it struck 
her that the Reverend Nicodemus might be the secret 
enemy, the' preacher of precaution. Such a Tartuffe as 
he looked; — so sly, so smooth, so mischievous! — Sure- 
ly, a man with so glozing a smile, and a voice so hypo- 
critically tuneful, must be open to bribery and corrup- 
tion? Lady Germaine took to helping him at table to 
the heads of the carp, the foie gras of the ragout mele. 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


103 

the thighs of the pheasant poult,* nominated him -her 
chaplain, and enclosed him a hundred pound note in 
the letter of appointment. The Reverend Nicodemus 
accepted, bowed, smiled, and ate,— but said not a 
word; when, three days after the last-named act of mu- 
nificence", “SirBurford Raymond, Bart, for Italy,” 
was announced among the fashionable departures; while 
the learned Pundit and his new chaplain forwarded to 
the Dowager their cards of P. P. C. by the hands of the 
under footman. 


CHAPTER VI. 


Forgets her labour as she toils along, 

Weeps tears of joy, and bursts into a song. 

C0V\’P£R. 

Perhaps, Lady Germaine had some little right to 
be in a rage on occasion of this base act of desertion. 
She, at least, did not call it in question; and was just 
as angry as an author at the hissing of hrs play, or Na- 
poleon during the concluding cannonade of Hougou- 
inont. She was defeated, doney overmatched, — while 
her daughter was not matched at all! 

But what was the augmentation of her disgust and 
fury, when circumstances brought to light the true mo- 
tives of Sir Burford’s abrupt departure! He had been 
refused, — absolutely refused by one of “those Ray- 
monds.” While her own beautiful Adela was engaged 
in smiling her sweetest smiles at him, and intent only 
on waiting the honour of his nod matrimonial, Marga- 
ret Raymond had calmly, coolly, and deliberately re- 
jected "his addresses! — Margaret Raymond, — a poor 
sickly thing, with nothing on earth to recommend her 
but a pair of sentimental gray eyes, and an annuity of 
fifty pounds per annum, payable from his own estate. 
Was such an insult to be borne? — Lady Germaine re- 


104 


THE FLIRT 


douljled her injunctions to Miss Richmond to with- 
draw the light other countenance from the family; and 
contented herself with turning her back upon Harry 
when he ventured to approach her at the last ball of the 
season. 

But could there be any real foundation for the report? 
Could Sir Burford Raymond, who held the name of his 
poor relations in abhorrence — who had looked year af- 
ter year with indifference upon the rare beauty of his 
cousin Mary — who breathed but in the atmosphere of 
fashion, — and scarcely recognised the existence of per- 
sons uninclined in his own set, could he by any possi- 
bility have found his way to Fulham; by any possibility 
have discovered a heart to place at the disposal of the 
gentle Margaret? — At all events he found a hamh — 
nay! even the decency to tender it in the most respect- 
ful and deferential manner, to offer an amende honora- 
ble for past offences, to restore Henry Raymond to his 
forfeited honours at Langdale, and the whole family to 
the open arms of his delighted old mother. 

Margaret, however, was inflexible. Without think- 
ing it necessary to explain to her disappointed suitor 
that her heart had already spoken in favour of Mr. 
Compton, and that Remington had only delayed speak- 
ing in favour of himself till he should conquer the ho- 
nourable independence necessary to support a wife, she 
assured him that neither time nor place would effect the 
least change in her sentiments towards himself, the seat 
in Dorsetshire, or the mansion in May Fair. She would 
have nothing to say to him or his. 

It is true that even Margaret, although of so soft and 
imperturbable a disposition, was for a moment startled 
from her usual serenity by the miracle of Sir Burford’s 
addresses. But she soon laughingly confessed to her sis- 
ters and brother, her suspicions that it was the author- 
ess, not the woman, he was anxious to make his wife; 
that his sudden passion arpse solely from the discovery 
that Harry Raymond’s second sister, the patient unas- 
suming invalid of the cottage at Fulham, was, in fact, 

the inspired writer — the brilliantly successful writer 

of that poem which had caused a revolution on Mount 
Parnassus, and troubled even the halcyon-haunted wa- 
ters of Helicon! She perceived that to so profound a 


or TEN SEASONS. 


105 

classic, the laurel was far beyond the myrtle, — and fame 
immeasurably more precious than reputation. 

And she was right in her conjecture. A wife who 
had been lauded in the Quarterly, eulogized in the Edin- 
burgh, sanctioned in the Westminster, and smothered 
m the panegyrics of New Monthly and Old— Fraser, 
Blackwood, and Athenaeum — immortalized in the Lite- 
rary Gazette— renowned in the National Omnibus^ a 
candidate for Westminster Abbey — a subject for the 
chisel and graver^ how could the classical Raymond, 
the blue Baronet, ponder without enthusiasm on the 
honours thus introduced into his family^ on his own ob- 
scure patronymic sent forth to the four corners of the 
earth by the unsilenceable trumpet of fame! — What 
would he have given to call her hisj to place her in 
perpetual presidency over his coterie of May Fair; and 
behold the laurels of her garland budding among the 
Weymouth-pine plantations of Langdale House! 

But it was not to be. Margaret, with all her sensi- 
tive timidity, possessed that tone of decision insepara- 
ble from good sense. In the course of half an hour’s 
conversation she made it appear so plainly to her lofty 
kinsman he had no chance of effecting an impression on 
her feelings, that Sir Burford, "when he re-entered his 
carriage to return to town, had already decided on pro- 
longing his journey along the Dover road on the follow- 
ing morning. He was aware that Dr. Fagg had long 
been in correspondence with the Superior of the Arme- 
nian Convent at Venice, touching a Sanscrit MS. on 
the gaine of Chess, dated five hundred and seventy 
years before the Flood; and would gladly accompany 
him to “ tlie cradle of learning and nursery of the arts,” 
as Sir Burford and the rest of the phrase-mongers are 
fond of denominating Italy. 

In the course of this brief exposition of her views and 
. opinions, Margaret Raymond contrived, moreover, to 
render her suitor sensible of something more than her 
own insensibility. Without assuming a tone either of 
dictation or remonstrance, she managed to place before 
his eyes the narrowness of his character, the unfiliality 
of his conduct towards his worthy father and mother, 
the ungenerous nature of his feelings towards her bro- 
ther Henry^ the barren nothingness of his own career. 


106 


THE FLIRT 


He was surprised — angry of course^ — but hinted that 
in the course of his Italian tour he might perhaps be 
tempted to lay her lessons to his heart. 

Certes, a more charming monitress than Margaret 
would have been difficult to find! High-minded, but 
with a voice, like Desdemona’s, “ever soft and low,” 
—lofty in her sentiments, yet lowly in her own self- 
estimation, — cultivated in mind and manners, yet ful- 
filling, without even the notion of debasement? all the 
humble offices inseparable from the necessities of her 
family, Margaret had cherished her fine gift of poetical 
inspiration as the consolation of herffiours of sickness, 
as the brightener of her clouded fortunes; nor was it till 
she was taught to regard this well-spring of her earthly 
desert as a source of prosperity to the good mother who 
had borne and sacrificed so much for the sake of herself, 
her brothers and sisters, that she began to recognise its 
value. Provided the seed could be sown in secret, the 
harvest gathered in the dark, so as to conceal her exer- 
tions in their behalf, Margaret readily consented to at- 
tempt the replenishment of the garners of her family; 
and it was a gratification inappreciably beyond the hol- 
low triumphs of vanity, to contribute to the comfort of 
those who had so tenderly watched over her own. Like 
a honey-bee, she clung to the flower-garden only to pro- 
vide winter subsistence for the hive. 

She spared them, however, all the anxieties of her 
venture; preserving the secret of her undertaking even 
from her beloved Harry, till she was enabled to offer to 
her mother a fifth edition of her work, and a sum of one 
thousand pounds. By the ministry of a faithful friend 
she had effected all her negotiations, realized all her 
profits. How grateful she was to him for his advice 
and interposition; — how grateful to the Mighty Source 
of every better gift, for imparting to her mind those im- 
pulses which were the real origin of her prosperity! 

“ A faithful friend?” — We trust none among our read- 
ers have ventured to suggest an idea that Mr. Compton 
was the bosom counsellor of Margaret on this critical 
occasion; for at that period. Miss Raymond was ac- 
quainted with Lord Soho’s son only through his literary 
reputation, and as an old brother Wintonian of Henry; 
ghe had not even seen him since his boyhood, when he 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


107 


occasionally paid a holiday visit to the protegee of his fa- 
ther’s neighbour. Sir Richard Raymond. No! the faith- 
ful friend was no Mr. Compton j no hero of romance; 
no lover in disguise; — it was the yellow lumbering na- 
bob, old Orme: 

Honestly and humbly would we apologize to the 
manes of that excellent man for this tardy mention and 
procrastinated development of his character; but know- 
ing him to have been a hater of hollow forms, we desist. 
Rupert Orme was in fact a very singular man, — singu- 
lar by nature, singular by circumstance; the strange 
chances of destiny had preserved him [unsophisticated 
among all the conventionalities of modern life. From 
his swaddling clothes to his shroud, the boy, the man, 
the veteran, aftbrded but a prolongation of the same 
thread. He was an oddity from his birth, without the 
smallest suspicion of his own originality. 

Rupert had been the friend of Raymond’s father pre- 
viously to his own departure for India. He was a man of 
what is called “ no family;” that is, he was the son of a 
yeoman of some twenty pure descents of yeoman blood. 
But whereas this twenty-first representative of the 
Ormes of Barleyholme chanced to be at once a man of 
no family and the father of one of considerable extent. 
Rupert, his ninth son, was despatched to India under 
the patronage of a Leadenhall-street godfather, at a pe- 
riod when the Pagoda tree, haying been less roughly 
shaken ti.an now, was still prolific of golden fruit. At 
twenty-one years of age, he was appointed* Judge of a 
district with an unpronounceable name, somewhere 
midway between Bombay and Calcutta; where he found 
himself destined to pass as many more years as he had 
already breathed the breath of life, among a tribe of 
dingy heathens, of whom it would be difficult to say 
whether the idol divinities or their human prototypes 
were the more hideous. 

Residing thus in the midst of fellow-creatures with 
whom he had neither possessed an idea in common, nor 
could exchange a single observation, it is plain that his 
own ideas must have multiplied exceedingly, and his 
own observations waxed most abundant. He became a 
sort of Nepaulitan Jaques, — a free commoner of the 
mango-groves,— a muser among the paddy-fields, — a 


THE FLinT 


108 

Cowper, substituting a cage of tiger-whelps for one of 
domesticated hares, — a bowl of sangaree for the bub- 
bling and loud-hissing urn, and the lotus of the Ganges 
for the water-lily of the Ouse, He was an amiable 
philosopher, walking about with a Welch nightcap and 
tassel amid the shadows of the banyan trees, and the 
haunts of the Cobra de Capellas. 

But not even the most amiable philosophy is prooT 
ao-ainst the irritations of bilious disorganization. Cow- 
per himself, the mild Melancthon, or Shenstone of the 
purling rills, would have become fretful, and like 
Shakspeare’s soldier “full of strange oaths,” had they 
been grilled into a liver complaint, or stewed over the 
slow fire of Hindostanic earth. At five and forty, Ru- 
pert Orme w^as as yellow as a ripe magnum-bonum 
plum^ at fifty, as brown and speckled as an Havannah 
cigar; at fifty-five, he was seen scudding laboriously at 
the regular constitution- trot on the Montpelier Parade 
at Cheltenham Spa; and at sixty, he had been refused 
by his friend Raymond’s widow, — was established as 
tlte proprietor of a fine house in Portland Place, — and 
(in spite of his caxon and velveteens) as the favourite 
friend and adviser of the gifted Margaret. 

An opinion is prevalent in the world, that nothing is 
so fatal to the fortunes of a young widow as.a large lit- 
tle family. But* the case was exactly reversed with 
Mrs. Raymond. Rupert had been so long' a homeless, 
companionless, affectionless man, that the sight of so 
many young and blooming faces was new and beautiful 
in his eyes. Their joyous voices spoke to his very 
heart; their endearments thrilled through his very soul. 
He longed to make them his own; he would have mar- 
ried them all, — girls, boys, and mother, — without a mo- 
ment’s hesitation. Their penury was nothing to him; 
he had a home and a heart for the whole family. 

But whether Mrs. Raymond still retained a fevv of 
her Richmond prejudices (she had scarcely been eioht 
years a wife,) and found it difficult to establish a paral- 
lel between the bright-eyed daughter of a Lord Ger- 
maine, and the caxonacious scion of Barleyholme; or 
whether she found it impossible to replace the image of 
the young and handsome Raymond in her heart (she 
had scarcely been two years a widow,) by that of the 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


109 


contemplative philosopher in velveteens — the disjointed 
Goliah of the Gauts — she declined his overtures of al- 
liance, and would accept nothing at his hands but a 
writership for her youngest boy. Charles, the eldest, 
had already been entered at Woolwich; Henry was 
living with her brother Germaine; but little Willie she 
placed under the guardianship of the man she did not 
love sufficiently to marry, or perhaps respected too 
much to marry without loving. 

Old Orme was satisfied; not quite, but very nearly. 
He had found an object on which to vent his affection; 
for of the Ormes of Barleyholme, with the exception 
of one boor of a nephew, the representative of the 
estate, all had disappeared; and as Mrs. Raymond was 
too wise to affect any sentimental coyness towards an 
old man of Rupert’s complexion, who had wooed her 
chiefly for the pleasure of feeding her young ravens, he 
soon found himself a welcome guest at Fulham when- 
ever he chose to extend his airings in that direction, and 
a favourite with all the little boys and girls. He was 
satisfied: for he had discovered the means of making 
himself happy through the happiness of others. 

And why, it may be asked, was this munificent man, 
this anxious benefactor of an orphan family, so slow in 
redeeming them from the degradations of poverty? — 
Why took he no direct means to place them above the 
privations of their narrow fortunes.^ — He was an oddi- 
ty! — In that one word every inconsistency may be in- 
cluded; but those who are willing to give him credit 
for the best motives, are at liberty to infer that Rupert’s 
experience confirmed the lesson that 

Sweet are the uses of adversity! 

— the opinion that persons who struggle with the cares 
of life in the onset of their career, are fitted to defy all 
future vicissitudes; that those who have been nursed in 
the storm and nurtured in the whirlwind, are most ca- 
pable of appreciating the beauty of the rainbow, and 
the charm of the sunshine. He knew he should always 
be at hand in case of an emergency; and loved, mean 
while, to applaud the honest pride with which the wi- 
dow conformed to her sunken fortunes, the gentle hu- 

VoL. I. 10 


110 


THE FLIRT 


mility with which the girls attempted to lighten her 
task. He was not at all eager to augment their means 
of education or accomplishment; he was not desirous 
of seeing them more choice in their attire, more prone 
to the empty diversions of society; but rejoiced that 
the three girls were in training to become good wives, 
good mothers, good Christians; and perhaps considered 
that the thorns of their garland became them even bet- 
ter than its roses. 

He was an oddity; but he was also human, and sub- 
ject to the frailties of humanity. Is there not, there- 
fore, a possibility that this precautionary wisdom might 
arise from the tyrannical vagaries of a mind matured 
and orientalized in a province midway between Bom- 
bay and Calcutta? — from the acquired despotism of a 
nature dieted for five and twenty years on currie and 
mulligatawney? — And, above all, might not Cupid, or 
Mahadeo, or some eastern or western god of love and 
lovers, — overlooking both caxen and velveteens and a 
pair of cheeks and top-boots of the Havannah complex- 
ion, — be the secret instigator of all his prudential for- 
bearance? Might not Rupert Orme imagine that the 
solicitude of maternal affection would at length drive 
into his arms the mother of Charles, Henry, and Wil- 
liam; of Mary, Margaret, and Jane? 

If such his view of the case, it proved fallacious. 
Every day the widow learned to regard him with a more 
friendly familiarity; but with a firmer degree of self- 
gratulation that she had evaded the distress of be- 
coming wife to the ungainly, uncouth benefactor of her 
children; a being whose soul and body were complete- 
ly out of joint, — and who was incapable of seeing, 
hearing, and feeling things as they are seen, heard, and 
felt by other people. 

There cannot be a more curious object of inquiry to 
a lover of speculative philosophy, than a man of acute 
perceptions and strong understanding, who has been 
thus suspended, like Mahomet’s coffin, between earth 
and air; a mari of books and meditations, who has lived 
apart from his kind; and suddenly finding himself 
dropped from the skies into the hubbub of a city, con- 
siders every thing in the abstract, and is still untram- 
melled by the prejudices and verdicts of society;— a 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


Ill 


man who has never in his life set foot in that illumi- 
nated house of correction — a London drawing-room I 

Rupert Orme was full of odd conceits, and crammed 
with the opinions of the fifteenth century. He looked 
upon poetry, painting, and music, as the appanage of 
kings; as mechanical inventions, good for what they 
would fetch, or baubles peculiarly appropriate to court- 
ly delectation. A fine picture, like a stray sturgeon, 
should be reserved, he thought, for the appetite of the 
great; and a book of poetry, he regarded like ermine 
and minever, as a graceful superfluity intended for the 
magnates of the land. 

When taken into Margaret’s confidence respecting 
her own, he pointed out to her that it was as much her 
duty to convert her talents into the means of mainte- 
nance for her family, as if she were in possession of a 
string of pearls, or some other costly trinket. Yet 
even with this contracted view of things, the old man 
formed a sane judgment of its merits. He saw that it 
was good; that it came straight from the mint of a fine 
imagination, and a pure and glowing heart. He told 
her it could not be overlooked; and his prognostica- 
tions were verified. The value accorded by all classes 
of society to the flower thus suddenly uprooted from its 
solitude, and put forth to blossom in the eye of day, 
eventually secured ease and recreation to the little cot- 
tage at Fulham; and obtained for th^ gentle Margaret, 
the adoration of a congenial mind in the person of Mr. 
Compton. Nay, it even tended to restore her brother 
Henry to the forbidden halls of Langdale House. 

Rupert Orme was triumphant! — On hearing of, Sir 
Burford’s proposal, he puckered his yellow cheeks into 
a smile, and indulged in an effort of cachinnation very 
much resembling the neigh of a zebra. 


THE FLIRT 


m 


CHAPTER VIL 


Now labyrinths, whiclj but themselves can pierce, 

Meihinks conduct them to some pleasant ground, 

Where welcome hills shut out the universe, 

And pines their lawny walk encompass round. 

Campbell. 

It was a very happy autumn, a very cheerful winter^ 
that once -more united the Raymond family at Lang- 
dale, under the auspices of the worthy widow, 'fhey 
felt it impossible to decline the invitation of one who 
had been so much a mother to Henry 5 more especially 
as her own son — her sole relative — was just then 
estranged from his home and country by the obduracy of 
Margaret. They regretted to leave old Orme to the 
dreariness of his uncompanionable existence. But 
Henry was in town on duty, and promised to be dili- 
gent m his visits to Portland Place; and Charles, who 
was now in the artillery, promised to run up occasion- 
ally from Woolwich, and cheer the solitude of his old 
friend. 

Mean while the sisters led a cheerful happy life, which 
borrowed neither monotony nor insipidity from their ex- 
perience of the giddy levities of a London season. Ma- 
ry had often described Langdale to them as dull and 
desolate, but she now admitted that Burford’s presence 
must have been the drawback on its attractions; for she 
grew daily fonder of the place, and confirmed the opi- 
nion of Margaret and Jane that nothing could exceed 
the beauty of its woods and plantations. The former 
admired them because they commanded a fine view of 
Compton Park; the latter because they enabled her to 
pursue the suggestions of her own buoyant youth and 


OF TEN SEASONS, 


113 


sportive animation, and run, skip, and laugh, as girls of 
sixteen are apt to do, who have not the fear of the go- 
verness before their eyes. Margaret, however, was sel- 
dom of their rambles^ her health was too delicate to ad- 
mit of more than an airing in the pony carriage, with her 
mother or Lady Raymond; but Mary and Jane were de- 
lighted to find their way through the woods to meet the 
daughter of Lord Soho, with whom they lived on terms 
of neighbourly friendship, and who had recently re- 
turned from a sojourn on the coast. 

Alicia Compton was one of the liveliest, drollest crea- 
tures in existence, — a person regarding all things and 
all people on their comic side, who had never known a 
care, never experienced a regret; the darling of a pros- 
perous and happy family. She was fond of the Ray- 
mond girls; fond of laughing with them at the solemn 
coxcombicality of their cousin Burford, the preposterous 
affectation -of Lady Caroline Ilderfield; and of project- 
ing schemes for the re-union of two persons who, she 
protested, were born for each other. Sometimes, in- 
deed, she included even Lord Stoneham in these sport- 
ive satires; till repeated experience led her to discover 
that Mary was apt to take upon herself the champion- 
ship of the absent Marquis, with mo're vivacity than 
might have been inferred from her unrelenting rejection 
of his suit. 

“There is a great difference between making him my 
husband and the object of my perpetual ridicule,” was 
the young lady’s self-defence, when her leniency to- 
wards him was pointed out. “IfyoM had seen so much 
of him, dearest Alicia, as I have, you would know that 
his manners are more objectionable than his understand- 
ing-. With all Lord Stoneham’s seeming silliness, it 
wiTl one day be discovered that he has a good head and 
a better heart.” 

“Then why did you refuse him?” was on the point 
of rising to Alicia’s lips, but she saw that Mary’s cheek 
was already flushed with embarrassment and vexation, 
and good-naturedly dropped the conversation. Alicia 
had sometimes found her own colour rise to a tint ex- 
tremely unsatisfactory to herself, when another young 
gentleman of the neighbourhood was made the subject 


114 


the flirt 


of discussion; and she therefore forbore to retaliate upon 
poor Mary Raymond. 

It chanced, mean while, that one fine day in Septem- 
ber, (one of those days of streamy yellow sunshine 
when the landscape seems enriched by an atmosphere 
of gold) the three friends met by appointment in a lofty 
grove of firs, commanding one of the highest points of 
ground in the neighbourhood; on which the late Sir 
Richard, in some enthusiastic fit of the picturesque 
soon after his marriage, had erected a Belvedere. The 
building, like most others merely ornamental, soon 
grew out of favour, and at length out of repair. Holi- 
day people from the adjacent villages gradually defaced 
the walls, fractured the windows, and broke up the 
seats to light their kettles: till, on the accession of Sir 
Burford the first, Langdale Tower was nothing but a 
granite skeleton, good at most for shelter during a storm 
of rain; but still possessing certain attractions ineffaca- 
ble by the mischief-loving hand of man, unconvertible 
to any vulgar purpose, incorruptible by the base uses of 
humanity. 

The knoll on which the Belvedere was erected, com- 
manded a vast sweep of country, rich with the finest 
features of a highly cultivated neighbourhood. The 
woods of Dronington Manor darkened the horizon; the 
modern elegance of Compton Park formed the middle 
distance of the landscape; the beautiful lake of Lang- 
dale and the winding stream by which it was fed lay at 
its base; and around the tower, tufted thickets inter- 
spersed with gorse and fern and heather, partly clothed 
and partly revealed tlie crags among which its founda- 
tions were laid. A murmuring multitude of bees pre- 
vented the solitary spot from seeming altogether lonely; 
and the spicy exhalations of the adjoining pine groves, 
basking in the searching fervour of the autumnal sun- 
shine, seemed to justify their preference of so fragrant 
a spot. 

Alicia and Mary had been sitting for nearly an hour 
among the ruins of the Belvedere, in refuge from the 
vivid brightness of the sky, discussing such topics as 
young ladies love to discuss;— new novels, new music, 
new works of fancy, old friends, old times, old ties, 
old claimants on their beneficence. They were trifling 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


115 


away a summer hour in the happiest interchange of in- 
nocent nothings^ while Jane, graceful and wild as one of 
the fawns which might be discerned at a distance frisk- 
ing among the dotted thorn-bushes of Langdale Chase, 
amused herself in defiance of the fierceness of the at- 
mosphere, by collecting the infinite variety of grasses 
and wild-flowers springing among the cliffs of the little 
glacis surrounding the tower. A shadow darkening the 
open door of the building suddenly arrested their dis- 
course; and a young, a very young sportsman was seen 
hurrying past, followed by several dogs and a game- 
keeper. He was precisely such a figure as ladies love 
to look on; and nothing could be more natural than 
that Miss Compton and Mary should exclaim at ihe 
same moment, “ How very handsome!” The next mi- 
nute a third person was added to their party; Jane, 
w'ith her cheeks crimsoned and her breath panting, burst 
into the Belvedere. 

“Jane has seen a ghost, or the illustrious stranger,” 
exclaimed Alicia, laughing at her perturbation. “ How 
is it. Fairy-foot; — did the young gentleman in the green 
jacket mistake you for the partridge — 

‘ That cuddles close beside the brake 
Afr^d to stay — ^afrmd to fly?’ 

Have you run any risk from that fearful double-barrelled 
gun?” 

“Do you know him?” exclaimed Jane. 

“ Him? — the gun? — My dear Jenny, a gun is always 
personified as of the feminine gender.” 

“No, no!” 

“ Yes, yes, my dear! Or perhaps you mean the ‘him’ 
who seemed the proprietor of that dreadful implement 
of destruction?” 

Jane’s cheeks glowed of a still deeper red. 

“It must be some person staying at Dronington Ma- 
nor; for I know Sir Burford has given the Duke the 
disposal of his preserves during his absence,” observed 
Mary Raymond. 

“Perhaps so,” said Alicia, listlessly; “and we must 
needs allow that his Grace is fortunate in a very hand- 
some visiter. I do not know his name; but I noticed 


THE FTJRT 


116 


him at Weymouth last week, flirting tremendously with 
that beautiful Miss Richmond.’^ 

“With my cousin Adela?” 

“Very true, — with your cousin ! I always forget your 
relationship, and recollect her only as the false goddess 
of your brother Henry’s worship.” 

“Thank heaven he is cured of that infatuation,” 
cried Mary. “Lady Germaine has sent poor Harry 
to Coventry.” 

“To make room for this young hunter of the woods, 
I conclude; for she was coquetting with him at a despe- 
rate rate. I forgot to ask his name and pretensions to 
so much graciousness.” 

“Mr. Orme inquired, but Lee and Kennedy could 
not inform him,” observed Jane in a little hurried agi- 
tated manner. 

“ ‘The dog-star rages!’ cried Alicia. “My dear 
Jane, what has your nabob or your gardener with a dou- 
ble name or double nature to do with the matter? — We 
were wrong to let you run about like a leveret among 
the fern. You have certainly had a coitp-de-soleiU^ 

“Better that than a coiip-'de-fusil^^’ cried Jane Ray- 
mond, rallying her spirits, “ which Lthought was going 
to be my portion, when he stepped forward with his 
apology. 

“He?” 


“ You must have seen him pass the door just now.” 

Him again? I saw two men; the Duke of Dron- 
ington’s keeper, and — ” 

“ A young stranger, with his dogs and gun,” said 
Jane, stoutly, piqued by Alicia’s bantering, “ whom I 
happened to meet one day last spring as I was assisting 
Mr. Orme to choose some flowers for mamma at the 
Hammersmith Nursery Grounds.” 

“ He seems to have made a strong impression,” ob- 
served Alicia, provokingly. 

“And with reason,” replied Jane; “for Mr. Orme 
was extremely displeased because he chanced to be 
walking through the conservatories at the same time 
with ourselves; and because, having very awkwardly 
thrown down and scattered a large bouquet, which the 
gardener was tying up for us, he very naturally ad- 
dressed me to make an apology.” 


OF TEN SEASONS. 117 

“ I remember, now, that you mentioned the circum- 
stance on our return,” said Mary. 

“‘Very naturally,* — ‘chanced to be walking,’ — 
Jane, Jane! — this mysterious unknown is certainly 
some disguised knight-errant of yours. I must make 
an investigation into the subject. Stay! — shall I write 
to Lady Caroline Ilderfield, or trust to the chance with 
which you say he is in league, to become his inter- 
preter?” 

“ We will not trouble ourselves concerning him,” 
interrupted Mary, in pity to the evident embarrass- 
ment of her sister. A friend of Adela Richmond is 
probably not worth an inquiry.” 

“Certainly not,” echoed Jane, placing the bunch of 
flowers she had been collecting in her girdle, but se- 
cretly hoping that Alicia would be as good or as bad as 
her word. 

The hero of the Belvedere was, however, very soon 
forgotten by the sisters in the hurry of two remarkable 
events which occurred a few days afterwards. The 
dunny vicar of Langdale departed this life, and was de- 
posited among his predecessors, beneath the vestry over 
which he had so long presided 5 and, on the same day, 
Henry Raymond arrived to pass a week’s leave with 
his family, — a week, a whole delightful week, divided 
between morning readings with Margaret in the library, 
afternoon rides in the greenwood with Mary, Jane, and 
their friend. Miss Comptonj and evenings devoted to 
music and conversation with the united circle! What 
could afford a more charming relief to the dulness of a 
London October^ a misty solitude, shared with a few 
Irish bricklayers and a great many barrows-full of green 
codlings! 

The happiness derived from his presence among 
them was, in some measure, counteracted by the mourn- 
ful event immediately preceding his arrival.^ Not that 
they, or any other human creature, experienced any 
thing like real affliction on occasion of Dr. Docket’s de- 
cease, (a man who was found to have been hoarding for 
fifty years, the proceeds of his various benefices, for the 
satisfaction of adding a wing to the obscure college of 
which he was a fellow, to be called the Docket Wing,) 
but because they foresaw the installation of the Reve-i 


118 


THE FLIRT 


rend Doctor Fagg, and the consequent banishment of 
the Reverend Eliab Rubric, the curate who, for twenty 
years past, had presided over the wants of the poor, the 
faith of the wavering, the happiness of the whole parish. 
He had, in fact, laboured solely and abundantly in his 
vocation, with the exception of collecting its tithes. 
The tithes were for the dunny vicar, and the Docket 
■wing; a salary of one hundred and fifteen pounds being 
deducted for the pittance of Eliab. 

The Raymond girls, familiarized by their works of 
benevolence with the state of the parish, — and the good 
old dowager, instructed by painful parental experience 
in the temporal and spiritual doctrines of Dr. Fagg, — 
were naturally moved with commiseration towards the 
people of Langdale. But all discussion was useless. 
The living had long been promised to the tutor of Sir 
Burford, t\\Q protegee of the Duke of Dronington. In- 
telligence of the death of the incumbent was duly de- 
spatched to Bologna, where the Baronet and his shadow 
were residing; and they now began to expect the arri- 
val of Nicodemus’s small travelling valise and snug lit- 
tle person, to take possession of the Vicarage. 

It was a doleful sight to Harry Raymond and his sis- 
ters to encounter poor Mrs. Rubric, or one of the cu- 
rate’s fine, hard, healthy-looking boys, in their daily 
walks, and reflect how soon they were likely to be 
ejected from the decent happy little tenement in which 
they had so long resided, and which they had so often 
rendered a stronghold of defence to their poorer breth- 
ren. The gafiers and gammers of Langdale trudged 
songless and discontented to work, pondering over the 
prospect of losing the comforter of their sickness, the 
strengthener of their hopes, the harbinger of their fu- 
ture compensation; and Rubric himself, in his rusty suit 
of curate’s gray, was often seen scudding with the eve- 
ning shadows along the meadows and coppices skirting 
the village, as if bidding farewell to the scene of his 
pastorallabours, — to the wilderness wherein he had so 
long folded his flock. 

There is something humiliating, something painful, in 
the si»ht of a scholar, — a servant of the altar — a man 
with furrows on his brow, and the scars of fifty years 
of worldly suffering in his heart, driven forth like a 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


119 


hireling to seek his bread; — bidden to resign all inter- 
course with those for whose sins he has offered up his 
intercessions to Heaven, — the shorn lamb he has shel- 
tered in his bosom, the straggler he has recalled from 
the waste and the wayside to the fold of God I Rubric 
was too meek to complain, too proud to weep; but he 
looked at his children, and the walls in which they had 
been born to him, and which once, he trusted, would 
shelter them till the accomplishment of their maturity, 
in the silence of a deep-felt sorrow, 

Poor Mrs. Rubric already began to count her move- 
ables; to gather together her napery and the well-worn 
garments of her family; to wander round her tiny gar- 
den with a heart swelling mightily towards the goose- 
berry bushes that had so long furnished her parsonic 
wine-press, and the crooked quince tree overhanging 
the pond, that had supplied her annual marmalade. 
There was not a double daisy putting up its pert head 
along the oyster-shell border, which did not (as Words- 
worth sings) inspire her with thoughts too deep for 
tears.” She wandered fi’om the little laundry to the 
little parlour, from the little parlour to the little kit- 
chen; and gazed upon her washing tubs and saucepans, 
saying, as the Indian tribes, on retiring to the back set- 
tlements, ejaculated to the bones of their ancestors, 
“ How can we say unto yoUy arise and follow us?” 
Every stir in the village, every rumbling of wheels in 
the direction of the Pig and Whistle, — the chief hostel 
of Langdale, — filled her with alarm. She lived in a 
perpetual presentiment of the advent of the Reverend 
Nicodemus Fagg. 

One evening, — it was the very evening appointed for 
Henry Raymond’s return to town, — a stirring October 
evening, when the autumnal winds speak with a loud 
voice among the branches, and the swirling eddies of 
crisp sere leaves smite sharply against the windows, 
and Rubric and his wife were sitting dejectedly beside 
their fire; she, occupied with that everlasting implement 
of the penurious housewife, a darning-needle; he, pon- 
dering with spectacles on nose over a folio Chrysostom, 
bequeathed him by the dunny Vicar, not “ to smooth 
his band in,” but as a handsome testimony of regard 
for twenty years’ services. Both were silent, both sad. 


THE FLIRT 


120 

But on a sudden Mrs. Rubric paused, with the ravelled 
muslin in one hand, and the “ glittering forfex ” in the 
other:— she heard a sound, a tumult, a rumbling of 
wheels. “ ’Tis the Doctor!” she faltered in a faint 
voice. “’Tis the Vicar!” responded her husband in 
a grave one; and rising with dignity he prepared, like 
Foscari the Doge, to look upon his successor. 

When, lo! a tap louder than any the crackling leaves 
of the sycamores could produce, was heard at the par- 
lour window^ the garden door was burst open with 
mighty violence; and, rushing into the little chamber, 
there appeared — (no! not Nicodemus! we ask pardon 
for the interruption) — Harry Raymond and his three 
sisters; their fine eyes sparkling, their handsome cheeks 
flowing with the evening air, their white teeth appear- 
ing through smiles of uncontrollable gratulation. 

“Margaret must read the letter, — Margaret is the 
cause of it all!” cried Jane, possessing herself of the 
epistle her brother was beginning to unfold, and placing 
it in her sister’s hands. And, in a moment, the little 
party was seated, and Margaret, in a tremulous voice, 
reciting a pompous despatch from Sir Burford Ray- 
mond. 

Pompous despatches, as is well known to the junior 
clerks of the foreign office, and junior attaches of fo- 
reign missions, are wofully dull of transcription; and it 
may, therefore, be desirable to pass over the expletives 
and parentheses of the learned Baronet, skip the long 
words, cut through the circumlocution, and arrive at 
the facts set forth in his protocol; — commas, colons, 
and semi-colons, would but perplex us. Besides, we 
have no inclination to. render or admit the Baronet as 
ridiculous on this as on other occasions; — for the first 
time of his life he proved himself capable of a generous 
action! 

The letter was to his mother; and regarded, in the 
first instance, her acceptance of an annuity for the pur- 
pose of bestowing on William Raymond a university 
education, with a view to his taking orders, should he 
be inclined to exchange a province between Bombay 
and Calcutta, for a rectory in the county of Dorset. If 
his inclinations were seen to tend towaVds the clerical 
estate, Langdale was to be his portion, with the an- 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


1-21 


nexed condition of retaining Rubric, with a quadrupled 
salary, as curate for life; who was nominated to the ab- 
solute tenure of the living till William’s ordination, — a 
period of, at least, six years to come. Thus much of the 
letter was all that concerned the Rubrics, — all that was 
read in the old glebe house, — all that caused the Curate’s 
heart to sing for joy; all that impelled Mrs, R. to creep up 
to the nursery and cry over her children, as soon as the 
pony carriage drove away, and the four happy faces of the 
four happy Raymonds disappeared. But it was a point 
of delicacy much discussed and much approved among 
the sisters and brothers on their return homewards, that 
Sir Burford had expressly avoided acting as a benefac- 
tor on this occasion, and had left the whole agency of 
the affair with his mother: he seemed conscious that 
the Fulham family might experience some little hesita- 
tion at receiving a favour from his hands. There could 
be no doubt that he had benefited largely by Marga- 
ret’s reprehensions; that the man was improving, the 
pedant humanizing: and that even in his benefactions 
he was chiefly anxious to give pleasure to the obdurate 
lady of his love. It was well done, therefore, on his 
part to spare her the embarrassment of obligation. 

What a happy evening at Langdale-house was that 
which decided that William was* not to be banished to 
India, nor the Rubrics from their village home! 


VoL. I. 


n 


122 


THE FLIRT 


CHAPTER Vin. 


’Tis always with a moral end 
Tliat I dissert, like grace before a feast. 

For like an aged aunt, or tiresome friend, 

A rigid guardian, or a zealous priest. 

My Muse by exhortation means to mend 
All people, in all limes, and in most places, 

Which puts my Pegasus to these grave paces. 

Byaox, 

Time passed on; — and that portion of the year which 
in the country we call spring and in London the sea- 
son, shone once more upon the earth. Adela Richmond 
re-commenced her course of gaieties, less pretty but 
more beautiful than ever, — less admired, but a thousand 
times more talked of. Lady Germaine now began to 
think it necessary to piant herself on higher and more 
ostensible ground. She took care that her daughter’s 
portrait should adorn the walls of Somerset House, and 
her name be included among those of the beauties no- 
ticed by the Court Circular at the Drawing Room. 
Banishing all remembrance of Sir Burford and her past 
mortifications, she resolved that Adela’s fourth season 
should crown her career with bridal orange-blossom. 

And in what, may we venture to inquire, consisted 
the “course of gaiety” apparently so win’mly appreci- 
ated by both mother and tlaughter; — what were their 
habits, their occupations, their means and measure of 
enjoyment? To rail for the first four months of the sea- 
son at the dulness and emptiness of town; — to fume, 
fret, and scold for tlie four ensuing, at balls, or rumours 
of balls, from which they fancied themselves designedly 
omitted; — to grumble during the bright days of June at 
the multiplicity and incompatibility of their engage- 
ments; — and amid the fading pleasures of July, to grasp 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


123 


at every dying flower till its leaves were crushed, — to 
redouble every effort, every matrimonial manoeuvre, till 
disappointment became disgrace. 

Nor were the minor cares and occupations of Adela 
more edifying or more satisfactory. Up till daylight, 
morning after morning, yet ever hurried away from the 
ball-room in “the sweet o’ the night,” lest the gray 
twilight should prove a dangerous visitation, a revealer 
of defeatures, a beaconrlight to the unwaryj — chained 
to a mid-day couch, day after day, by headach and 
the apprehension not of personal fatigue, but of a care- 
worn countenance; — all the labours of beauty, — all the 
cares of designing, ordering, inspecting and altering, 
ball dress after ball dress; — all the dread of being sur- 
passed by the addition of a flounce, feather, or spangle, 
by some mischievous rival; — all the apprehension of ap- 
pearing either before or behind the fashion, — of oflenu- 
ing Lady This by copying some irresistible peculiarity 
of her cdstume, or Lady That by flying into a contrary 
extreme; — all the peevish, trivial, selfish, contemptible 
vexations and toils of a mere woman of the world, fvere 
already gathering round her young head! To attract, 
to enslave, to form a good connexion, occupied every 
thought of this immortal and responsible being. 

At all events her exertions Were crowned with, suc- 
cess. Adela, — “ the lovely Adela Richmond,” — “ the 
fascinating Adela Riclimond,” — afforded a theme for 
universal panegyric. Whose eyes were half so blue, — 
whose teeth half so pearly , — ivhose tresses half so re- 
dundant? Fair, gracious, piquante, many a prudent fa- 
ther trembled when he saw the fashionablS flirt resting 
upon the arm of his son; many a gentle mother grew 
uneasy on beholding the worldly-wise beauty engaged 
in conversation with her daughter. Still, there Were 
enougli of the inexperienced, the vain, the hollow, and 
the frivolous, to applaud, worship, sigh, tremble, — do 
every thing but seek to make the varnished toy their 
own. 

Among those persons who lookecj at Lady Germaine 
and her daughter with an unloving eye, was old Orme. 
He had once or twice crossed their path on occasion of 
their visits to Fulham; and would just as soon have seen 
a snake coiling at his feet as either parent or child. Re- 


124 


THE FLIRT 


garding them as hard-hearted, hollow-minded, cold- 
blooded animals, coming forth among mankind to look 
for prey, — he shuddered when he thought of the elderly 
woman creeping to her grave in her rouge and perfumes 
and pearl-powderj and still more of the girl, {the girl 
whose mind should have been as spotless as the white 
rose half opened to the early sun, and bright as that 
sun’s meridian beam) plotting, caballing, and appa- 
relling herself in meretricious allurements. — “I met 
that v/riggling worm, Lady Germaine, as I was coming 
hither,” — was w ith him an invariable prelude to ill-hu- 
mour for the remainder of the day* 

Rupert had, however, a newer subject for dissatisfac- 
tion in Sir Burford’s interference in the destinies of his 
protegee, little Willie. He had long looked upon th& 
boy as his own, and his fortune as the boy’s. He, who 
had traversed tlve immense ocean, and dwelt some five- 
and-twenty years in a strange country, thought very 
differently from Mrs. Raymond, on the subject of sea- 
voyages and ^reign banishment. Having had little to> 
forsake wortliy regret at Barleyholme, with its nine 
wooden skittles of human growth, he could not enter 
into the sorrows of absence ftom an affectionate and 
gentle family. Great as was his love for the orphan, he 
loved him after the selfish fashion of mortal nature. He 
chose that his heir should do as he had done, live as he 
had lived, see all he had seen; that he should dwell 
among swarthy brows, become addicted to the Hookah,^ 
and learn the flavour of kilbjohns and manguasteens. 
It was never his intention that William Raymond should 
remain long in India; but he felt satisfied that he should 
love his protegee the better with a complexion some- 
what jaundiced, and a coat redolent of camphor-wmod. 

And then he hated what he w^as pleased to call “a 
parson!” — ^Driven from England in inexperienced boy- 
hood, the chaplains of the presidency did not inspire 
him with an advantageous opinion of the clerical profes- 
sion. Heber — the Apostle of modern Christendom — 
was not of his day^ he knew nothing of such men as 
Rubric; and rashly concluded that Willie, in taking or- 
ders, would become a mere tithe-gatherer — a Sunday 
automaton mechanizing the duties of a preacher of the 
Word. The old man could not bear to think of it; and 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


125 


very decidedly infocmed Mrs. Raymond that he should 
have nothing farther to say to the Rector of Langdale. 
Perplexed by the alternative thus presented, and anx- 
ious only to fulfil her duty to her son, she left the op- 
tion to himself^ when William, secretly desirous to se- 
cond the preference of his mother, after a consultation 
with Charles and Henry, who declined advising on a 
f)oint connected with their own interests, addressed 
himself to Remington Compton, who pronounced with- 
out hesitation in favour of the University and Langdale 
Rectory^ Nothing could be more natural. — Lord Soho’s 
son, who was daily and hourly gathering laurels in the 
metropolis, courted among its intellectual circles, and 
cheered by its brilliant promises of fame and prosperity, 
was little likely to advocate the precarious fortunes of a 
baneful climate, or the moral extinction of banishment 
to the interior of India, when opposed to a handsome 
competence in the land of liberty, love and enlighten- 
ment. He was precisely the sort of man who regards 
a metropolis as the only arena worthy to animate hu- 
man exertions. 

After kissing the withered hand of old Rupert for 
the last time, William Orme accordingly took his de- 
parture for Trinity; and very soon after his instalment, 
his letters to Henry, Charles, and his sisters, were co- 
piously illuminated with illusions to the wild feats, col- 
lege triumphs, and personal attractions of their cousin 
Lord Germaine; — a young scapegrace on the eve of his 
majority, whom no one ever mentioned without a frown 
upon their brow and a smile upon their lips. By Wil- 
liam’s account, the future head of the house of Rich- 
mond was the finest fellow in the world, — all joy, sun- 
shine, and impulse; seldom out of a scrape, and never 
out of humour; seldom with a shilling to pay his debts 
— never without a guinea to bestow on the misfortunes 
of the poor. 

On occasion of the first visit paid by Adela to “ those 
Raymonds,” after William’s inauguration at Cam- 
bridge, (but no! they were not “those,” they were only 
“/Ae Raymonds” now) she was completely puzzled 
by the numerous inquiries addressed to her by Mary, 
touching their noble kinsman; his looks, his temper, his 
character, nay! even those of his guardian Sir Clau- 


120 


THE ELiirr 


ilius Veerham, seemed to have become matters of inte- 
rest at Fulham. It was really very inipertinent in such 
people to trouble themselves about the matter! What 
was Lord Germaine to them? He was never likely to 
move in circles or seek their acquaintance; and 
it was nothing to the purpose that he Happened to 
breathe the same atmosphere with that stupid little dor- 
mouse her aunt Raymond’s pet, the future parson of 
Langdale. 

Adela replied to their* questions as discouragingly as 
possible. “She had seen Lord Germaine, and thought 
him tolerably good-looking; very young in his manners 
and ideas; and frisky and awkward as a greyhound 
puppy. He was going to leave college, she understood, 
and might improve; but, at present, he had very little 
to recommend him.” 

Who w'ould have guessed, who would have dreamed^ 
from the tone employed by Miss Richmond in this defi- 
nition of her cousin’s character, that it had long been 
decided between Lady Germaine and herself, (should 
she be still unmarried on his coming of age,)- to make 
him theirs for ever? — Or that, as the fatal period was 
nearly at hand, and her manoeuvres in the art of match- 
making wholly infructuous, she was intent only upon 
seizing on her victim previously to his appearance in 
general society, that she might strike home, forestall all 
other impressions, and entangle him in a premature en- 
gagement! 

Sir Claudius Veerham was a city knight, selected by 
the late Hon. Charles Richmond as his executor and 
trustee to his son, without any expectation that the title 
would so soon, or even eventually devolve to his line; 
and Lady Germaine had calculated too successfully on 
the vanity of the guardian, and his anxiety to propiti- 
ate her notice, to be at all doubtful of his co-operation 
in securing the marriage. 

From the period of her husband’s death she had, in 
fact, never lost sight of the necessity of forming a close 
alliance with his successor. Whether as the head of 
the house, or the future dispenser of her own jointure, 
she regarded the little petticoated peer as a most im- 
portant personage; and no sooner had she consulted her 
own interests by turning little Harry 'Raymond out of 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


127 


doors, than she exerted herself to the utmost to -make 
her little lordly nephew her inmate in his room. But 
Sir Claudius, however courteous and pliant, judged it 
his duty to keep the boy under his own roof; and the 
utmost concession he could be persuaded to grant to the 
tenderest of aunts was to lend her Lord Germaine, now 
and then, for a week; to be made sick with plum-cake, 
and sorry with the contentions invariably ensuing be- 
tween himself and the peevish pretty little Adela, who 
was just advanced three years in age and tyranny be- 
yond himself. 

• Mean while the epoch of birch and Latin grammar 
arrived; and his little lordship found the visits of Lady 
Germaine’s sweetmeat- laden carriage to his preparato- 
ry house of industry at Parson’s Green, quite as de- 
lightful as her foresight could desire. Yet, some how 
or other, aunt Germaine and the ipecacuanha of Dr, 
Cerate the apothecary became inextricably associated 
in his reminiscences; and even afterwards, during his 
Eton vacations, her ladyship’s private supply of pocket- 
money to the young spendthrift was sure to produce 
some misadventure, in the shape of a broken cabriolet 
or broken collar-bone, an expedition to Epsom-races, a 
police-row, or a night in the watch-house. Do what 
she would, her indulgence to her nephew became a 
constant source of vexation to him: — his better angel 
seemed to delight in scattering bitterness among the 
sweets of her bestowing. 

But what reminiscence of emetics or broken cabrio- 
lets, what shadow of past annoyances, could over- 
power the glow of delight and wonder with which the 
matured eye of Lord Germaine rested on the loveliness 
of his beautiful cousin; a cousin who devoted all her 
smiles, all her affections to himself; who welcomed him 
so sweetly in his skulks from Cambridge to town; and 
triumphed so feelingly in the success of his petty war- 
fare against Sir Claudius Veerham of Mincing Lane! — 
Gracious and animated with all the world, Adela as- 
sumed an air of tender protection, of girlish playful- 
ness in the presence of the young Cherubino who 
seemed to attach himself so fondly to her side. She 
presented him to all the frequenters of her mother’s 
housej bespoke for him the favourable acceptance of 


THE FLIRT 


128 

society-, echoed his bon-mots, applauded his indiscre- 
itions. “ Germaine was so young; — Germaine was so 
handsome; — Germaine- was such a clever creature, such 
a good creature!” No wonder she could scarcely be 
persuaded to suffer him out of her sight. 

Under these circumstances, Miss Richmond could 
not but regret that William Raymond should happen to 
settle at Trinity six weeks before the close of Lord 
Germaine’s last term. But there was no great harm 
done. The boy was too tame and insignificant to ob- 
tain any permanent influence over her madcap cousin; 
and on the whole it was far more vexatious to her that 
she could not manage to inspire Germaine with a taste 
for balls or a genius for dancing; and that nothing 
would induce him to make his appearance (where it is 
so much the duty of young lordiings to make their ap- 
pearance) in the Hall of Eblis, that paradise of earthly 
Peris, that scene of bliss and bale, the rooms of Willis! 
No persuasion of hers could induce him to convert 
himself into a spinning-top; or labour through those se- 
vere Terpsichorean exercises which provoked the Indian 
Rajah to inquire of a dancing English Duke, “ Why 
does not your Highness get your servants to do this for 
you, as is our custom in the East?” 

But with very little hope of obtaining him as her 
partner for a quadrille, Miss Richmond entertained 
none of securing him as her partner for life. — He was 
accustomed to gaze upon her with a smile of such in- 
tense admiration: to be her escort in the ride with such 
a triumphant sympathy in her noble horsewomanship. 
There only remained seven months of his minority: at 
the expiration of which Lord Germaine would doubt- 
less propose, and Adela’s projects be fully realized. 
Lady Germaine occasionally hinted to her nephew, that 
he was at least free to anticipate the event by a solemn 
betrothment; but either his extreme youth blinded him 
to the graciousness of her intentions, or he was unwil- 
ling to shackle his fair cousin. 

Adela, however, seemed determined to regard the 
connexion in as serious and religious a point of view as 
if already consecrated by a plighted vow. She gave 
up flirting, forsook the lists 'of coquetry, no longer 
waltzed, no longer whispered in doorways, no longer 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


129 

lingered in half-deserted ball-rooms when mamma and 
the chaperons were gone down to supper; no longer 
loitered on Lord Augustus’s arm, hunting for a boa 
which they had themselves carefully hidden under a 
Skiddavv of shawls and cloaks; no longer found herself 
intercepted by the crowd,, when following Lady Ger- 
maine, in company with Henry Raymond, along the 
colonnade of the chair-door at the opera. She knew 
Germaine to be very quick-sighted in such matters; 
and conceived it her best policy to sacrifice every dar- 
ling folly and flirtation for his sake, or the sake of his 
coronet and estates. Sir Claudius Veerham was pro- 
bably aware of all that was going on; and either consi- 
dered the connexion a satisfactory one for his ward, or 
that his own interference between an aunt and a nephew 
was unjustifiable: for he said and did nothing to for- 
ward or retard the affiiir. 

Ma.ny are the votaries of superstition even among 
the witty and the wise (with Byron as a brilliant lead- 
er of the list,) who despond over transactions effect- 
ed on a Friday. For our own part, we are satisfied 
that the year has its unlucky month as well as the 
week its unlucky day; and that a larger proportion 
of fashionable tears is wept during the month of Au- 
gust, than during any other thirty-one of the three 
hundred and sixty-five days of annual sorrow. Au- 
gust is a sort of harsh equator, dividing the trifler’s 
year into grave and gay, lively and severe, pleasure 
and penance; it interposes a moral ha-ha between the 
ornate lawn of the London season, and the wilder pros- 
pects of the year, to overleap which is an exertion that 
startles all human beings into sobriety. 

August! — thou fearful epoch, when persons who have 
been living for the preceding hundred days without be- 
ing many hundred minutes apart, must bid a hasty adieu 
with the certainty of eight months of tedious absence; 
when hearts which have been for weeks on the eve of 
interchanging their tender afflictions, are suddenly 
chilled into prudence by the consciousness that half a, 
step more must be decisive, — while others who have 
maintained a cautious silence during the season, are- 
moved to a rash explanation at the moment of parting 
guch as renders that parting final; — August! — when th^ 


130 


THE FLIRT 


young sportsman, labouring prematurely in his voca- 
tion, passes the morning in pilgrimages from the arsenal 
of Purdey to that of Nock, ot Nock to Manton,— his 
head charged with a copper cap, his heart quick of ig- 
nition as battle powder; and when the anxious dowa- 
ger, foiled in her campaign, retreats from the field with 
her baggage, opprobriating the cause she has been una- 
ble to render triumphant. August: — thou month ot 
grouse and grumblings; of moors and moroseness, — 
how cruelly dost thou disenchant the dream of the fa- 
shionable visionary, while teaching wisdom to the idler, 
and folly to the wise! . 

From the earliest day of the month in question, from 
the first morning on which she noticed the sunshine 
turning red and the leaves turning brown in the groves 
of Hyde Park, poor Lady Germaine found herself ex- 
tremely perplexed whither to direct her autumnal tour. 
Like most other dowagers destitute of a country seat, 
she possessed a reasonable number of convenient friends 
who were fond of illuminating the dulness of their re- 
tirement with the lovely smiles of Adela Richmond, 
and the lively, chatty, conformability of Lady Ger- 
maine, who was never so agreeable as when living at 
other people’s expense. But to such places it would 
have been impossible to allure her pleasure-loving ne- 
phew. The very mention of her own mother’s beauti- 
ful country-house, would have sufficed to send him 
ptarmigan shooting to Norway; and she found it diffi- 
cult by any effort of art, science, or nature, to extract 
an acknowledgment of his preference for any particu- 
lar bathing-place. She had already managed to make 
him bear her company at different times to Brighton, 
Ramsgate, Weymouth; but he had shown himself dis- 
satisfied with all three, and could not be induced to 
say more at present, than that “Hastings was very 
green and pretty Well, my dear Germaine; I am 
just thinking of taking Adela there for change of air!”) 
— “but very dull; and that the Isle of Wight w^as a 
charming place”— (“ It would be very easy for us all to 
go to Cowes for a montJj or two.”) — “ but that nothing 
but a flounder or a wherryman could put up with the 
mud.” In short, she was in a horrible dilemma. It 
>vas impossible to remain longer in London without be- 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


131 


coming particular; and still more impossible to move 
without having secured lier nephew’s attendance. But 
Lord Germaine was already so much occupied with his 
p*ercussions and flints, his rifles and double-barrels, 
that she began to fear there was no probability of inter- 
cepting his engagements to the preserves of my Lord 
this, and the Duke of the other, by a matrimomal en- 
gagement with her daughter. Nothing could be plain- 
er than that Adela must give way to the partridges and 
pheasants; for already he was growing far less constant 
in his attendance, and had almost deserted her house. 
At this crisis, in the midst of her fretful ness, flurry, 
and disappointment, she received a mysterious letter 
from Sir Claudius Veerham. — With a trembling voice 
she read as follows; — > 


.CHAPTER IX. 


I would have thee engage in wedlock, not for the love of beauty, but for 
the love and protection of merit: for a companion to help thee through thy 
cares, and worthily and holily breed up thy children. 

Petrarch’s Treatise on the Vanities of Life. 

To THE Dowager Lady Germaine.” 

■ Mincing LanCy August 10 — 28.” 

“ Dear Madam, 

“ Satisfied as I am that your ladyship will agree with 
me in thinking that, under the present existing circum- 
stances, that nothing could be more disadvantageous to 
my beloved ward, than any thing like a precipitate ma- 
trimonial engagement, l—‘‘ (Rigmarole !~why can’t 
the man come to the point?— “ I am under the neces- 
sity of troubling your ladyship with a few lines less in 
justification of my own conduct, than in explanation of 

the very underhand and ” (What can he mean.?)— 

“ unhandsome treatment practised against me by all 


132 


THE TLIRT 


parties^’^ (Unhandsome, indeed! if he had exerted the 
vigilance necessary with a lad of Germainels age, he 
would have been acquainted with the whole progress of 
the alfair.”) 

“Finding, in short, that it was his lordship’s inten- 
tions to follow up his attachment to his fair cousin by 
immediate proposals of marriage, I have judged it ex- 
pedient to interfere; and by the authority vested in me 
by the will of my friend ^ his late father, have already 
despatched his lordship to the continent under the care 
of the reverend gentleman who has presided over the 
latter years of his education; with an understanding 
that if he consents to postpone the completion of his 
views until his coming of age, no obstacle shall be raised 
on my part to retard the accomplishment of his wishes. 
In order to prevent any correspondence between the 
young people, such* as might tend to the disarrangement 
of my plans, I have obtained from his lordship a pro- 
mise that no letter shall pass between himself and his 
relatives till the attainment of his majority; an event 
which will occur in February next, and secure me from 
all implication in the affair. 

“Trusting that my forbearance and delicacy on the 
occasion will be honoured with your ladyship’s ap- 
proval, 

“ I have the honour to subscribe myself, 
“Dear madam, 

“Your ladyship’s devoted 

“ Obedient humble servant, 
“Claudius Veerham.” 

Lady Germaine’s indignation was too big for words; 
and Adela’s beautiful cheek became flushed with a 
crimson stain of suppressed rage. That a guardian 
who had remained so long supine, should suddenly 
rouse himself from his lethargy to perpetrate so vile ah 
act of despotism, was really too provoking! 

“I told you how it would be!” cried the mother.— 
" I told you the other night, when you chose to let Ger- 
maine sit whispering to you the whole evening* at the 
opera, that I suspected the vulgar old woman opposite 
in the blue turban, was Lady Veerham; but you would 
not be warned by me.” 


o:f ten seasons. 


133 


I had already been warned by Germaine; he in- 
formed me from the first that it was Lady Veerham; 
we both knew it. But Sir Claudius never expressed 
the slij^htest objection to my cousin’s visits here; and 
I thought it unnecessary to disguise the state of the 
case.” 

“ And a pretty state you have brought it to at last!” 

“ I think it shows a great want of spirit on the part 
of Germaine, to submit to being sent abroad like a 
school boy. Why could he not stay and defy Sir 
Claudius; or why not, at least, take measures to ac- 
quaint us with his route, that we might write to him or 
follow him?” — 

“Follow him!” reiterated Lady Germaine, and in 
so vehement a tone, that Adela fancied she was going 
to resent the ignominious proposal. “Follow him! — 
the very thing — We have nothing in the world to do 
with ourselves; let us go to Paris, which is the starting- 
post for all foreign countries. We shall be sure to find 
out at the Embassy whether my nephew has been there, 
and where he was going; and even if we do not trace 
him out, as we have nothing to amuse us till February 
next, we may just as well be in Paris as elsewhere. I 
shall get my partie every evening all the autumn; and 
if I can persuade your guardian to advance us a little 
money before we go, you can be getting your trousseau 
together to be ready for the event.” 

“Very true, mamma; — do let us be off as soon as 
possible. I am heartily sick of London. Living such 
a life of penance and privation as I have done for the 
last four months, Paris will appear delightful.” 

“Paris is always delightful,” replied the mother, 
sententiously; “it is the only place in the world where 
one can live without troubling one’s self with thinking 
and feeling.” 

And to Paris they went; but the etiort was crowned 
with no success in its main object. Lord Germaine 
had neither been seen nor heard of! It was plain that 
the measures of Sir Claudius were very artfully taken; 
and nothing remained but to tame down their impa- 
tience for an event which was to free them mutually of 
each other, at the end of the shooting season and of his 
VoL. I. 12 


134 


THE FLIRT 


young lordship’s minority, — the fatal month of Fe- 
bruary. 

Mean while, Adela, aware that the Parisian, unlike 
the British metropolis, gives no encouragement to print- 
ed details of balls, or newspaper panegyrics on the 
dancing of Lady Eleanor, or the singing of Lady 
.Mary, felt that she was secure from being betrayed to 
her cousin as the brightest ornament of all the autum- 
nal breakfasts, all the early winter balls. She therefore 
rc-commenced with eagerness her career of dancing 
and flirting, particularly at those mansions of the 
French nobility where the English residents are less ge- 
nerally admitted j and soon consoled herself for Lord 
Germaine’s absence by the adoration of a host of ba- 
rons, counts, and chevaliers. Her fair Saxon , beauty 
attracted universal admiration^ and she continued to 
make herself happy in the day’s enjoyment without 
reckoning much on the morrow. She was no longer 
looking out for a match. She knew that the second 
week in February would crown her experiment; and as 
Germaine might possibly prove as tenacious and exi- 
geant as matrimony usually renders his countrymen, 
slie felt that she was acting most judiciously and fairly 
towards herself, in making the most of the intervening 
time. 

Mean while, the little party at Fulham, after enjoy- 
ing a happy winter, which tended to enhance the pro- 
mise of many happy summers, was preparing for a fes- 
tival of considerable importance; — the solemnization 
of its first marriage. The least beautiful of the sisters 
was the first to invest herself in the matron duties of a 
wife. Margaret, the pearl of price, who from the su- 
periority and peculiar nature other endowments, mio-ht 
have been predicted as the last to meet with a suitable 
alliance, had been fortunate in securing the attachment 
of the man of all England most capable of appreciating 
the powers of her mind, without being inclined to over- 
look those less ostensible but better gifts, her gentle 
temper and feminine humility. Mr. Compton honoured 
while he loved her, and still maintained above herself 
that intellectual supremacy indispensable to the happi- 
ness of a married life; while Margaret Raymond’s pre- 
ference, which had been excited in the first instance by 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


135 


admiration of her lover’s genius and literary distinc- 
tion, was soon lost in strong personal attachment, and 
the contemplation of that hallowed bond which is supe- 
rior to the mere vanities of life. 

Nor was she less fortunate in the character of her 
husband’s family than in his own. The Sohos were 
people recently ennobled, and so imperfectly established 
in their new honours, that they still regarded literary 
distinction as a means of redeeming personal obscurity. 
Instead of feeling shocked and disgusted by the idea of 
connecting themselves with “an authoress,” (as would 
probably have been the case with a tribe of five hun- 
dred years of aristocratic duncehood,) they were as 
much pleased with Miss Raymond for commanding a 
certain portion of the attention of society, as for her 
power of connecting them with two ancient names, 
such as those of Richmond and Raymond. On similar 
principles of ambition they had urged their son into the 
prominence of a public career^ and would have been 
far less disposed to facilitate his union with one of the 
Miss Dechiminis, with a portion of twenty thousand 
pounds, than with the daughter of an honourable Mrs. 
Raymond, boasting no dowry beyond a name, that was 
capable of collecting a crowd round the door of any 
ball-room in London. 

During the intimacy between the families produced 
by their Tong visit to Langdale, Lord Soho, moved by 
the excellent domestic qualities he discovered in the 
object of Remington’s choice, facilitated their marriage 
by a handsome settlement and the gift of a comfortable 
residence in the neighbourhood of St. James’s Park; ex- 
acting only in return, that his son should relax neither 
his parliamentary nor professional exertions in the indo- 
lence of a married life. Next to his new coronet, there 
was nothing on earth he prized so highly as the public 
honours attained by his future representative; and in 
the full persuasion that the chances . of time and tide 
would place the future Lord Soho on the woolsack, or 
involve him in public duties of equal importance, he 
was delighted to behold his favourite son settled in life 
and secured from the seductions of London gaiety, by 
an alliance with one so worthy to be the companion of 
his retirement as Margaret Raymond. He welcomed 


136 


THE FLIRT 


her into his family with all the partiality and eagerness- 
her sensitive delicacy could desire. 

It is possible that his lordship’s disinterestedness of 
conduct on the occasion, might in some degree tend to 
rouse the spirit of old Rupert Orme, who had hitherto 
been so remiss in giving tangible proofs of his favour to 
the girl whom, in his heart, he loved beyond the rest of 
the family, and in his soul reverenced beyond the rest 
of the world. She was the only woman, the only lady, 
he had ever known whose accomplishments were sus- 
ceptible of conversion into the currency of the realm. 
He thought her less useless than the more showy por- 
tion of her sex; and had some satisfaction in present- 
ing his young friend Compton with ten thousand pounds, 
as the marriage portion of one who had laboured dili- 
gently to increase the scanty revenues of her family. It 
was, however, no surprise to the old man, to find that 
a handsome share of the gift was set apart by the bride- 
groom for the benefit of l)er mother and sisters. 

But of all the persons present on the joyous occa- 
sion of Margaret’s hymeneals, who so happy, who so 
proud, as her brother Henry ? He, who had so tender- 
ly watched over her feeble health, at a period when no 
peculiar distinctions invested her with a degree of im- 
portance superior to the charm attending the extreme 
beauty of his elder and younger sister; — he, who had 
loved her so tenderly, so vigilantly, while Rupert Orme 
was still wandering among the mango-groves, and Re- 
mington Compton plodding away amid the dust and 
parchments of Lincoln’s Inn; — he, who had maintained 
her dignity against the sneers levelled by Adela and 
Lady Germaine as literary ladies, and applauded her 
rejection of tiie brilliant overtures of vSir Burford the 
Great; — he bestowed her upon his friend at the altar 
with all the heartfelt fervour of a father — all the ex- 
ulting tenderness of the happiest of brothers. Alicia 
Compton could hardly conceal her sympathy in his ho- 
nest pride — his genial warmth of feeling. 

While Lady Germaine and Adela were luxuriating 
in the inebriations of the carnival, intoxicated or mad 
with those fermenting fumes of vanity which bewilder 
the coteries of Paris previously to the amende honorable 
of a Lenten repentance, tUe Honourable Mrs, Comp- 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


137 


ton took possession of a handsome mansion in Sprino- 
Gardens, happy in the affection of a husband who hact 
no objection to her seeing as much of “ those Raymonds ” 
as she pleased^ and who neither affected nor felt any 
peculiar horror on perceiving that the facilities thus af- 
iorded to a more intimate friendship between his own 
sister and the brother of his bride, had the singular ef- 
fect of rendering the giddy Alicia grave — the sentiment- 
al Harry, a rattler. He was not blind to the fact that 
they were falling in love, with the headlong obstinacy 
that sometimes attends the growth of that amiable pas- 
sion, with both the wise and foolish; but after having 
warned the young guardsman that his sister had nothing 
to depend on beyond the shallow settlement provided, 
for one of six younger children, and reminded Alicia 
that she had been too long accustomed to the ostenta- 
tions of life to limit her inclinations to a barrack-room 
and the precedency of a subaltern’s wife, he conceived, 
that he had done his duty. Perhaps, the discerning 
Remington was aware that his predication had been 
rendered superfluous by the previous influence of those 
daily walks among the Langdale woods, and daily rides 
among the Langdale lanes, which had increased the 
measure of Alicia’s sighs, and animated the mirth of 
Ifenry. Perhaps, he was aware that they were already 
desperately in love; and having neither Puck nor Ariel 
at command, did not attempt to “put a girdle round, 
about the earth,” or to dam up the flow of the Ganges, 
or to arrest the progress of a tender passion between a 
pair of weak-headed, strong-hearted young persons, who 
had been sentimentalizing together among the groves 
and the nightingales, in all the charming bewilder- 
ment of knowing they had not a twig whereon to build 
a nest for the turtle dove ship of their own unprosper- 
ous destinies. 

During the latter weeks of Margaret’s courtship, from 
the period when Lord Soho had come forward so libe- 
rally in favour of the establishment of his son, it was 
frequently raised as a question of some interest in the 
Fulham circle, whether Sir Burford ought to be formal- 
ly apprized of the approaching event; or whether it 
miMit not be unwise to irritate him by an announce- 
ment so Altai to his own projects of happiness; and it 
12 * 


138 


THE FLIRT 


was finally resolved by Mary, who had seen most of 
their cousin, and, therefore, liked/him least of the fami- 
ly, that his pretensions to Margaret’s hand having arisen 
merely from the vanities of her literary success, he was 
very little to be pitied for his disappointment. Had it 
not been for Mrs. Raymond’s grateful recollection of 
his interference in favour of her darling Willie, he 
might have been left to the disrespect of learning this 
important fiimily event through the medium of Galigna- 
ni’s Messenger, or of an inconclusive epistle from his 
mother, which contained the following hint: — 

“Yours, my dear Burford, came S(^e to hand, and 
glad to learn of your rheumatism. My nig is come 
back finished last Saturday was a fortnight, and now 
made up from town, looking very rich and comfortable^ 
with our good neighbour Soho’s son Remington’s wed- 
ding cake. All much pleased with Margaret. Mr. 

generosity being the universal theme. Mr. Ru- 
bric writes by this post; so will only conclude from 
Your aftectionate mother, 

Dorothy Raymond.” 


But Mrs. Raymond thought it necessary to commu- 
nicate the event in a more detailed manner to the son 
of her benefactor. Sir Richard — to the benefactor of her 
own son William; and after bestowing prodigious pains 
and consideration on the composition of a despatch ad- 
dressed to so critical an eye as that of the pupil of the 
Rev. Dr. Fagg, she put him in possession of all the cir- 
cumstantialities of the case. 


It is probable that the acquisition proved unaccepta- 
hl® ^0^' *^ot one syllable did the baronet vouchsafe in 
1 etui n; although on one point of her communication,-— 
a point intimately connected with the interests of ano- 
ther member of her little family, —she had judo-ed it 
advisable to solicit his advice and opinion. He had 
either become indifferent to the matter, or was offended 
past conciliation; and Mrs. Compton was seriously dis- 
tressed to perceive, on Henry’s account, that the for- 
mer feuds between Langdale and Fulham were likely 
to be renewed, and that her brother must give up all 
chance of succeeding at some future time to the estates 
of his family. The prospect did not, however, avail 


OF TEN SEASONS. 13 q 

to damp the courage of tlie pretty Alicia, who expressed 
herself perfectly content with Mapleton and its four 
hundred per annum, the reversion of which was already 
settled on the young guardsman. They would then be 
able to make up between them nearly eight hundred a- 
yearl— Eight hundred a-year, and a cottage in Kent:— 
^ hat could exceed the delights of such a prospect? 
The young couple already looked confidently forward 
to a life of honey-moon and elegant economy. 


CHAPTER X. 


When I tonsider the false impressions which are received by the generality 
of the world, I am troubled at none more than a certain levity of thought, 
which many young women of quality have entertained, to the hazard of 
their characters, and the certain misfortune of their lives. 

Steele. 

It excited no little surprise among those higher cir- 
cles of the French nobility in which Lady Germaine 
and her daughter were passing the winter, to observe 
the perfect independence of tone and action assumed 
by the beautiful Adela. They, who were habituated to 
the sight of the mute damsels with downcast eyes and 
mechanical docility, who constitute and represent the 
spinster estate in France, were amazed to find a girl, 
an unemancipated girl, invested in the splendours of at- 
tire and levities of speech and demeanour, characteris- 
tic of the married Frenchwoman, Many inquired if 
she were not a widow; and all, while they worshipped 
her beauty and applauded her sallies, agreed that she 
must have renounced every prospect of matrimony, and 
made up her mind to retain her independence for life. 
They could not conceive it possible that attractions of 
such a nature were put forward to engage any man in 
his senses to make her the mother of his children, the 
companion of his fire-side. “ Since she already assumes 
such liberty of conscience,” cried the young Due de 
Villeroi, “ what will she be when marriage renders her 


140 


THE FLIRT 


her own mistress? — what will she be as a wife ? — Dim , 
in’ en ’preserve*'^ 

But even had Adela been aware of the opinions thus i 
frequently expressed, and the still severer ones which il 
remained unspoken, the tenor of her conduct would , 
have been unchanged. She regarded herself as beyond : 
the influence of public opinion, as tacitly affianced to a , 
young nobleman of considerable property, and, there- 
fore, privileged to defy the prejudices of society. 

“ Qut voulez vousP^’ she exclaimed to her giddj 
friend, the Marchioness of Girastolle; “you say it is ; 
the custom in Paris for none but married women to flirt ; 
in a ball-room, or a ride in the Bois de Boulogne. In : 
England, we girls are the favoured order. How can ; 
you blame me for insisting, so long as I am able, on 
the privileges of my casteP — depend on it I will not ne- 
glect those of yours, as soon as I am entitled to exer- !i 
cise them. After all, London is the place for Made- !' 
moiselle, — Paris for Madame.” — 

“ Were you one of us, mu belle Mele, you would 
run some risk of never becoming Madame P’ cried the | 
Marchioness pettishly; and Miss Richmond attributing ; 
her remonstrance to tlie vexation of finding her privi- 1 
leges encroached on by a stranger, determined to per- |, 
sist in the career so consonant with her own inclinations. | 
Lady Germaine, in all the hurry of her ecarte, and her || 
anxiety to see her apartments crowded by a weekly re- f 
union of the distingues of Paris, was either unobservant \ 
of the astonishment excited by her daughter’s freedom l( 
of action, or indifferent to the indiscretion which she i 
considered a main source of their popularity. She !i 
knew that Adela was guiltless of any thing “really t| 
wrong;” and had no notion of subjecting herself to the | 
absurd customs and prejudices of any foreign country. j| 

Mean while, the portentous month of February drew | 
near; — when, one night, on ascending the illuminated j 
staircase of the chateau to a ball given by the Duchesse ^ 
de Berri, they were met by Lord Augustus Cecil, an ' 
intimate friend of the noble minor, whose arm Lady j 
Germaine caught in passing, that she might assail him 
with a few hurried interrogations concerning her ne- 
phew. But his lordship, who was flying oft* in attend- 
ance on the beautiful Lady Avenmore (who was going 


OF TBN SEASONS. 


141 


away overcome by the heat of the ball-room, or the pre- 
sence of a sister of her lord, said to exercise a very 
jealous scrutiny over her movements) could not be de- 
tained. He promised to call the next day at Lady Ger- 
maine’s hotel; but even his brief intelligence that he 
had “only just quitted his friend Germaine,” excited 
Adela’s curiosity and interest to so high a pitch, that for 
the first time she forgot to exult in the triumph of find- 
ing herself the prettiest woman, and the best dressed 
English woman in the circle of Madame; for the first 
time the reserve and tranquillity of her demeanour en- 
sured the approbation of the assembly. 

But the following morning brought no Lord Augus- 
tus; Lady Germaine, after pacing her gorgeous saloon 
for three anxious hours, despatched her chasseur to the: 
Hotel Castiglione; and instead of seeing him return, 
followed by the truant dandy, had the mortification to 
receive the following billet, left by his lordship to be de- 
livered to her after nis departure for England ! 


“ Dear Lady Germaine, 

“ I am otF to Calais, — ^and am, therefore, under 
the necessity of apologising for the impossibility of wait- 
ing upon you according to my engagement. Let me, 
however, fulfil the most important purpose of my in- 
tended visit, by informing you that 1 quitted Germaine 
a fortnight ago at Naples, on the point of beginning his 
journey homewards. He is in high spirits, but growing 
a bore; for he thinks and dreams, and, of course, talks 
only of the enfranchisement of his approaching majori- 
ty, and the delight of renouncing his freedom by an 
immediate marriage with his beautiful cousin. — I never 
saw a fellow so miserably in love.— -I should imagine he 
would be at Paris in ten days. 

“Your ladyship’s 

“ Most obedient servant, 

“A. C.” 


“ Well, my dear mamma,” cried Adela, who had 
been watching Lady Germaine’s perusal of the porten- 
tous billet; but unable to decipher through the mask of 
her ladyship’s cosmetics, the effect produced on her 
countenance by Lord Augustus’s intelligence: “What 


142 


THE FtlRt 


news of poor Augustus?— Has Lady Avenmore reduced , 
him to the desperation of drowning himself in Curagoa; i 
or what has become of him this morning?” I 

“ Augustus!” cried Lady Germaine, laying down the ; 
billet with an air of contemptuous vexation; “ What on ; 
earth is Lord Augustus to you?”- 


Not much certainly! — ^yet I don’t think I should 
have hurried Madame Deschamps so violently for my 


new pelisse, had I not fancied he was coming here to- 
day. Lord Augustus is the only Englishman I ever 
knew on whom the advantages of a pretty dress were not 
thrown away. He has almost as much imagination as 
Herbault.” 

“Well, then,” exclaimed Lady Germaine, unable to 
repress her satisfaction at the information imparted by 
Lord Augustus sufficiently to chide, as it deserved, the 
flippancy of her daughter, “ you cannot do better than 
write and consult him about your trousseau; for it ap- 
pears that Germaine’s impatience will leave you veiy 
little leisure, after his arrival, to make your prepara- 
tions. ” 

“Preparations?” cried Adela, eagerly snatching the 
letter, and perusing it with glowing cheeks, and affect- 
ing an air of unconcern as soon as she found that all 
was safe. 

“ I really wish Lord Augustus had managed to bring 
us this news himself,” said she, with nonchalance, re- 
turning the bfllet to her mother. “I should like to 
have learned from him by what art old Veerham con- 
trived to kidnap my cousin, and prevent him from cor- 
responding with us. There is something very myste- 
ous about it.” ^ 

“ Have patience, and Germaine will explain the whole 
affair. He will be here, you see, in less than a fort- 
night; and as the period of my location will expire by 
fliat time, I shall propose our immediate departure for 
England.” ^ 

The ten days intervening between Lord Augustus 
and Lady Avenmore’s departure and this anxiously ex- 
pected event would have been unspeakably tedious both 
to Adela and her mother, had they not managed to fix 
meir attention on the various purchases which Lady 
Germaine judged it prudent to effect in Paris, in order 


OF Tj&N SEASONS. 


143 


to economize the expenditure indispensable for the wed- 
ding clothes of a vicountess. Day after day, the triflers 
were engrossed by the task of selecting laces, measuring 
cambric, examining embroidery 5 and any one less com- 
placently self-disposed than Adela Richmond, might 
nave become weary of contemplating her own blue eyes 
in the glass, and of trying on hats, bonnets, toques, be- 
rets, and a thousand other fripperies, elevated into im- 
portance by those magniloquent titles by which the Pa- 
risians contrive to impart dignity to a shaving-brush, or 
a patent corkscrew. Yet every evening found her un- 
abated in ardour to increase her store of treasures^ and, 
but for the limitation of Lady Gerraaine^s jointure and 
generosity, it is probable that not a novelty-shop from 
the Rue Vivienne to the Isle St. Louis, would have been 
left unexplored by the restless vanity of the bride-ex- 
pectant. 

At length the ten days specified by Lord Augustus 
Cecil were brought to a close; Lady Germaine deposited 
especial instructions at the Hotel of the British Embas- 
sy that intelligence of her nephew’s arrival should in- 
stantly be forwarded to herself; and was even at the 
trouble of bribing the municipal officer stationed at the 
Barrierc d’ltalie, to take charge of her card of address, 
and deliver it to the first English Milor bearing the 
same name, whose travelling carriage and passport 
should present themselves to his recognisance. At the 
end of the fortnight, when every day, every hour, eve- 
ry minute, threatened to produce the happy crisis, she 
would no longer quit the house lest they should miss the 
hour of Lord Germaine’s arrival; and every evening a 
dinner consisting of his favourite dishes was served up 
to the two disconsolate ladies. No invitations were ac- 
cepted, no invitations given, lest they should interfere 
with the first meeting between the lovers. 

Three weeks expired, and no Lord Germaine! — It 
was useless to write, for the truant had certainly quit- 
ted Naples, and was probably loitering by the way at 
Florence, or Geneva, or some other gay resort of his 
countrymen; and nothing could be more embarrassing 
than to invent excuses for the numerous querists, who 
were continually flattering Lady Germaine by inquiries 


144 


THE flirt 


after the dear nephew she was so anxiously expectin^^ 
and whom the whispers of certain milliners and embroi- 
derers respecting the coronettization of the trousseau de 
Mademoiselle de Bougement^ naturally pointed out to 
their suspicions as the future husband of Adela. It was 
equally vexatious to her ladyship to acknowledge that 
she was completely in the dark as to the cause of his 
delay, and to dawdle away her time in the hotel she had 
been compelled to re-engage for a month, on the pros- 
pect of his arrival. It was already Lent. Every thing 
at Paris was dull and desolatei and, probably, amid the 
million and a half of penitential souls, sighing away their 
sins over their soupe maigre, not one was smitten with 
a more profound sense of the vanities and vexations of 
human life, than poor Lady Germaine, — surrounded by 
bills for the paraphernalia of a wedding that was begin- 
ning to look so very problematical. 

But her ladyship’s perplexities were almost at an 
end! — She had been too frequent and too circumstantial 
in her investigations at the Embassy, not to have excited 
the sympathy of one or two of the attaches^ who had 
been somewhat predisposed against Adela by her well- 
known antipathy to younger brothers. Anxious, there- 
fore, to terminate a dilemma which they had pretty near- 
ly traced to its origin, Mr. William St. Leger was, at 
length, deputed by his confederates to favour her lady- 
ship with the intelligence that Lord Germaine and suite, 
instead of traversing France, had taken the Tyrolean 
and Rhine road to England 5 and that his lordship had 
crossed from Rotterdam to London five weeks before! 

Startling as were these tidings, Lady Germaine had 
scarcely breath to read aloud to Adela, (from a copy of 
the Courier transmitted with the attache’s polite de- 
spatch,) the following astounding paragraph: — 

“ MARRIAGE IN HIGH-LIFE. 

“On Thursday evening last were married, by special 
license, by the Lord Bishop of London, at the residence 
of the Hon. Remington Compton, M. P., the Right Hon. 
Viscount Germaine, to Jane, youngest daughter of the 
late Charles Raymond, Esq. " After the ceremony the 
happy pair set oft' for Richmond Hall, in Westmoreland, 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


145 


the scat of the bridegroom. The bridesmaids officiating 
on the occasion were the Lady Caroline Ilderfield, the 
Hon. Miss Compton, and the beautiful Miss Raymond, 
sister to the bride. ” 

‘‘ Those Raymonds!!!” 


CHAPTER XII. 


Painted for sight, and essenced for the smell. 

Like frigates fraught with spice and cochineal, 

Sail in the ladies! How each pirate eyes 
So frail a vessel and so rich a prize! 

Donne’s Satires, 


Very willingly would Adela have renounced the pro- 
ject of returning to London, and encountering anew the 
joys of “the season.” She was not heart-struck, in- 
deed^ she had never regarded her cousin Germaine 
more tenderly than as a good-natured, pleasant crea- 
ture, whcfrn it would be very convenient to her to mar- 
ry, and who would probably prove extremely indulgent 
to his wife. But she was mortified — injured — irritated 
— angry w’ith every body. She felt that she should 
have no patience to hear of Lady Germaine’s diamonds, 
and Lady Germaine’s equipages; nor to listen to Mrs. 
Raymond’s prosaic self-gratulation on the domestic hap- 
piness of her daughter Compton. It was some comfort 
to her that Mary was still unmarried; but, after seeing 
greatness so strangely thrust upon her sisters, ivho could 
predict what might happen to the eldest and handsomest 
of her three cousins. 

But, though the announcement of Lord Germaine’s 
alliance with his pretty cousin proved so sudden, so 
terrible a blow to Adela and her mother, there was no- 
thing either sudden or terrible in the arrangement of 
the connexion. His passion for Jane had originated, in- 
deed, in one of those childish fancies denominated “love 

VoL. I. 13 


146 


THE FLIRT 


at first sight.” Two accidental meetings — one at the 
Hammersmith florist’s, the other in the Langdale shrub- 
beries, — had imprinted her image on his imagination as 
that of a divinity. The attractive countenance and 
elegant form of the unknown fair one haunted his dreams 
as those of some wandering wood-nymph; and no sooner 
did a visit to his new friend William Raymond, disco- 
ver to him, late in the preceding season, the object of 
his idolatry in the person of that sweet cousin, that 
“darling Jane” of whom Raymond had been so apt to 
rhapsodize, — than he tendered himself and his posses- 
sions to her acceptance. 

It may readily be supposed that the mysterious hero 
of poor Jane’s romance, the “ him ” in whose honour she 
had been blushing for six months past, did not prove un- 
acceptable; and from the moment he had the happiness 
of hearing their engagement confirmed by Mrs. Ray- 
mond, the young lord found it very difficult to return 
to the heartless frivolity of Lady Germaine’s circle. The 
Fulham family, indeed, were anxious that the connex- 
ion should be gradually dropped; and, in truth, he had 
never much liked Adela or his aunt. The former, he 
admired as a very handsome, fashionable girl, a most 
decided flirt, who had not sufficient generosity of mind 
to qualify her as the confidant of his passion for his 
charming Jane; — while in the latter he beheld a woman 
frightfully and unfemininely worldly — sickening to his 
reminiscences as the authoress of his first emetic — sick- 
ening to his heart as a match-making mother. He en- 
tertained no suspicion of their immediate projects on 
himself; fancying that he had made the kinsmanly na- 
ture of his attentions too apparent to sanction any thino- 
resembling a matrimonial cabal: nor had he the least 
idea that, in giving his hand to his beloved Jane, he was 
doing more than stimulating Lady Germaine’s old an- 
tipathy to “those Raymonds!” — of whom she had al- 
ways spoken to him as low, designing people, — uniting 
the odium of being poor relations with every other spe- 
cies of vileness. 

The interposition of Sir Claudius Veerham, which 
was tlie consequence of a formal intimation given him 
by his ward at the instigation of Remington Compton, 
has already been alluded to: and as to the delight, the 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


147 


ecstasy with which the boy -lover flew, at the close of 
his probation, to claim the plighted hand of the pretty 
little fairy who seemed to have opened her eyes on the 
world of men and women, only to fix them on the being 
destined to be eternally her own, the subject would ex- 
haust the superlatives even of the most experienced no- 
velist. 

Fortunately for the tranquillity of Adela, Lord and 
Lady Germaine were still in Westmoreland, when she 
found herself installed once more in her mother’s re- 
sidence, to experience anew the mortification of send- 
ing round their visiting-tickets for the season as the 


Dowager Viscountess Germaine. 
Miss Richmond. 

Curzon Street. 


It was some consolation to be spared for a time the 
spectacle of the young Viscount’s raptures, and the 
awkward and vulgar airs of his bride. Her only re- 
maining source of triumph was, however, the certainty 
that they would be awkward and vulgar: for how could 
one of “those Raymonds ” living at Fulham, and repu- 
diated by the great world, form an accurate conception 
of the forms and etiquettes of fashionable society? Lady 
Germaine must inevitably commit herself, and be dis- 
missed to that paltry class of the little great, the tritons 
of the minnows of second-rate London. 

Mean while, her own best chance of happiness was to 
direct her thoughts as much as possible from the pros- 
perity of her cousins, and assume a new line of attrac- 
tion, such as might serve to varnish over the true mo- 
tive of her residence in Paris, and render her return 
triumphant. Suspicious, perhaps, that the refined deli- 
cacy of her beauty was somewhat faded, she strove to 
repair the injuries of time by intense affectation, and by 
Frenchifying her costume, manners, tone, and dialect, 
to the utmost extent of absurdity. Instead of renewing 
her pretensions to be considered the prettiest girl in 
London, she affected to be the best dressed^ was ago- 


148 


THE FLIRT 


nized by the horrors of the English toilet, as they were 
exhibited by some of the most elegant women at Al- 
macks; and could no longer talk, walk, or even think, 
except after the exact pattern of the frivolous dolls 
among whom she had been passing the winter. The 
thing succeeded for a time, succeeded among that no- 
velty-seeking class to which Miss Richmond’s efforts 
were addressed. 

But, wonderful to relate,; the success of so paltry a 
stage trick was not limited to the Lady Julianas and 
Lady Marias whose imaginations were taken prisoners 
by the strangeness of her coiffure, or the nicety and 
freshness of her ball dress. While taking aim at the 
Almack’s covey soon after her arrival in town, a random 
shot glanced off, and like the bolt of Cupid, “lighted on 
a little western flower!” 

A certain Mr. Courtenay, the eldest son of a rich De- 
vonshire Baronet, having been honoured by a chance 
presentation to the flirt of five seasons, was so mucli 
struck by the new world of tbppery unfolded to him by 
the Parisian belk^ that he immediately attached himself 
to her side. He was quite a young man; junior by three 
years to the experienced Adela, having only just quit- 
ted the University, with precisely that reserve of mind 
and shyness of demeanour, which so often place a man 
at the disposal of the first pretty woman who chooses to 
exert her arts for his captivation, 

Adela did choose. He was not, it is true, so brilliant 
a match as her young cousin, or even as Sir Burford 
Raymond; and was manifestly inferior in pretensions to 
the Colonel Rawford and Bronze, Esq., rejected in her 
first season. But her kinsfolk and acquaintance were 
marrying around her; innumerable girls of far inferior 
pretensions, who had made their dehut at the same time, 
were already advantageously settled in life; and she 
was well aware that the woes experienced by the last 
Rose of summer” are no less true than tuneful. She 
judged it wise, therefore, to descend two or three steps 
from her original altitude, fancying that, thanks to the 
mincing affectation which now characterized all her 
movements, the derogation would not be noticed by the 
spectators. 

There cannot be a more vexatious sight in the eyes of 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


149 


the hard, cold, uncompromising class of rationalists, such 
as Rupert Orme, than that of a fine, open-hearted youth 
shipwrecked on the rocks of fashionable society, to be 
made an easy prey by the sharks, male and female, wha 
haunt its perilous shore. Frederick Courtenay was a 
most accomplished scholar, not after the fashion of a 
Sir Burford Raymond, but in the highest sense of the 
word 5 but he was very timid in female society^ destitute 
of knowledge of the world, scarcely knew the meaning 
of the word flirt, — and above all, found it impossible to 
fancy that the graceful, beautiful Adela, who smiled so 
sweetly in his face, listened so graciously to his sighs, 
and preferred him to all the host of danglers aspiring to 
her hand in every ball-room in London, had existed 
previously to the happy moment which introduced him to 
her acquaintance. He had not been idling away his time 
in club-windows, or giving ear to all the flippant slan- 
ders which circulate trom coterie to coterie concerning 
every woman who attracts the attention of the world. 
A man of such refined and sensitive delicacy would have 
shrunk from yielding the rich treasure of his affections 
to one who had been so often wooed; and how much 
more to one who was known to have exerted her capti- 
vations for such and such a purpose — to entangle an 
heir apparent — or conquer the hand of a boy viscount! 

Poor Courtenay! — how fondly be fell into the snare; 
how confidently he intrusted to the ear of Adela all the 
vagaries of his romantic enthusiasm, all his projects of 
happiness, without the slightest suspicion that she could 
be so base as to render his ingenuousness the scoff* of 
Lord Augustus Cecil, and the secret object of her own 
unlimited contempt. And yet she rejoiced in the rash 
candour of her lover, — for it convinced her that a man 
so unsophisticated would be the most amenable and do- 
cile husband in the world. 

Fortunately for Frederick, there were many circum- 
stances to intervene previously to reducing Miss Rich- 
mond’s theory to practice. His father was a rich but a 
cautious man; and though rarely an inhabitant of the 
metropolis, had connexions there of sufficient discern- 
ment to see all that was going on, and sufficient profi- 
ciencvin West End lore, to know that Lady Germaine’s 
13 * 


150 


THE FLIRT 


(laughter was a fashionable coquette — the mother a ma- 
noeuvring matchmaker. 

Sir Frederick Courtenay, angry to find that his son 
and heir was seeking engagements so important without 
testifying his respect by confiding them to his parents, 
now thought proper to forestall his confessions by a let-- 
ter taxing him, in a very parental tone, with folly and 
disingenuousness! — Even tliese charges might have been 
endured with submission by the sighing Streplion; but 
unfortunately the Devonshire Baronet existed beyond 
the circle of Adela’s enchantments^ and unbiassed by 
her Parisian graces, or even those of nature, actually 
presumed to discuss the fashionable Miss Richmond in a 
tone almost as fatherly as that which characterized his 
apostrophe to his son. He called Frederick a fool, and 
Adela a flirt! — — 

Mr. Courtenay’s reply exhibited of course a very pro- 
per spirit of filial resistance and lover-like indignation. 
He acknowledged, indeed, the justice of one half of his 
father’s charge, in the avowal that if not a fool, he loved 
like onej but as to the vile aspersion on Miss Rich- 
mond’s character, words failed him in rebutting the ca- 
lumny. — “Adela, a flirt! — Adela, from whose side he 
had scarcely stirred for six weeks pastj who loved him 
so affectionately; who so generously confessed that she 
found in his society, in his conversation, that charm, 
that kindred sympathy, she had despaired of meeting 
among the heartless circles to which she was restricted. 
Adela, who talked with him about the moonliglit and 
the twilight; the flowers and the showers; the bright in- 
telligence of commingling minds, — the exquisite antici- 
pation of au eternal union, a united eternity; who died 
with him of a rose in aromatic pain, and revived to live 
with him in a chaos of bright confusion, — stars, enchant- 
ed islands, golden violets, Goethe, the devil, and Dr. 
Faustus!” 

But Sir Frederick was not to be blinded nor deafened, 
nor above all silenced by these rhapsodies. He saw^ 
with the penetrating eye of fifty-five, heard with the vi- 
gilant ear of paternal solicitude, and finally spoke with 
the paramount authority that showed him master of the 
destinies of his son. He threatened the suspension of 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


151 


Frederick’s allowance, unless he consented to quit Lon- 
don; and refused to settle a single shilling oh him, in 
the event of his marriage, unless he would put the 
strength of his attachment to the proof, by absenting 
himself for two whole years from the society of Lady 
Germaine and her daughter. “You are only twenty- 
one,” wrote the matter-of-fact Baronet, “/ did not 
marry till twenty-five; and yet you see how much too 
closely you tread upon my heels! — Take my advice, 
Fred, and give yourself time to grow gray before your 
eldest son writes to acquaint you that he is about to 
provide you with a daughter-in-law, towards whom you 
entertain a strong antipathy.” 

It was impossible to exhibit this insulting protocol to 
Lady Germaine; and it was even very difficult to modi- 
fy its contents with any chance of making his father’s 
intentions intelligible, and escaping being forbidden the 
house. The crisis was imminent; and poor Frederick 
Courtenay executed a very perturbed rap at the door 
in Curzon Street, when he betook himself thither with 
a view to explanation. One only alternative suggested 
itself to his mind, — which he hastened to attach to his 
preliminaries. He had already learned from Lady Ger- 
maine, that Adela was entitled on her marriage to a for- 
tune of five thousand pounds; and would she but con- 
sent to become his own in defiance of the menaces of 
his father, they might appropriate this sum to their ex- 
penses, and continue to reside with Mamma in Curzon 
Street, till Sir Frederick Courtenay could be wrought 
upon to listen to their proposals. 

What a notion! — what a scheme to propound to a 
cunning dowager! — To be sure, poor Fred, was the son 
of “a De’nshire clown,” and more addicted to the pe- 
rusal of Plato than the maxims of La Rochefoucauld! 

Instead of acceding to this proposal of becoming a 
resident in her house. Lady Germaine conceived very 
strong inclinations to order him to'be turned out of it 
on the spot; but frequent disappointments and the unto- 
ward state of Adela’s affairs rendered her cautious; and 
after begging time to take his project into consideration, 
she arranged the business very much to her own satis- 
faction, by one of those curious specimens of epistolary 
circumlocution, by which fiishionable ladies contrive to 


THE FLIRT 


152 

do the rudest things in the most gracious manner. The 
original document occupied a sheet and a half of wire- 
wove paper. In print, and divested of its courtsuit of 
flummery and deprecation, the heart ot the matter may 
be contained in two lines, — tliat he must not again en- 
ter her doors till sanctioned by Sir Frederick Courte- 
nay’s consent to his union with Miss Richmond. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


It is a miserable thing to live always in suspense : ’tis the life of the spi- 
der. Swift. 


It was just two days after this catastrophe, and Adela 
sat moping over her breakfast, wearied to death by the 
vigils of a dull ball at the mansion of the old-fashioned 
Duchess of Rackwell’s, which she had exerted herself 
to attend in order to silence the ill-natured rumours al- 
ready current respecting Mr. Courtenay’s sudden de- 
parture for Devonshire^ while Lady Germaine, attired 
in those fatal spectacles which she never ventured to use 
unless in the confidential privacy of domestic life, pored 
over the columns of the Morning Post, At the opera, 
or in the park, she was near-sighted, and required a 
glass: — in Curzon Street, over the morning papers, she 
condescended to be old and blind enough for specta- 
cles. 

“ Yes! here it is,” said Lady Germaine addressing 
her daughter — ‘Frederick Courtenay, Esq. for the seat 
of his father Sir Frederick Courtenay, Bart. Brook- 
lands, Devonshire.’ — How I hate the tittle-tattle of the 
English newspapers! Why cannot they allow people 
to go in and out of town without flourishing the trumpet 
of Fame, like the clarion for a royal enti re in a tragedy.” 

“Announced among the departures? — What a bore! 
— The Howards asked me so many questions last nio-ht 
about the cause of his absence^ and insisted he was gone 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


i5S 

into the country to look for a house for our future resi- 
dence. Of course I did not deny it; and I am sure I 
looked gudty and conscious enough.” 

“And should you meet them to-night at-Lady Wes- 
^rham’s you will have some new pretext to invent! 
But what have we here?” continued her ladyship, run- 
ning her eye along a column of dates and proper names^ 
— “ Something about ‘ those Raymonds;’ yes!--the ge- 
nealogy of the Rayniond family, — ‘distinguished anti- 
quarian^ researches in the Morea; island of Cerigo, — 
^axOs, — Homer’s School;’ — Good heavens! my dear 
Adela! how very lucky; after all, every thing has hap- 
pened for the best! — Sir Burford Raymond is dead!”— 

“ Indeed!” exclaimed Adela, not immediately per-' 
ceiving the nature of her good fortune in the event 
“Probably he caught a malaria fever, poking among 
the foundations of the Eternal City; and has bequeathed 
his remains to be converted into a mummy by the 
hands of that conservator of learned lumber, Nicodemus 
Fagg.’’ 

“ His remains! — To whom do you think he has be- 
queathed his estates 

“ Some college, or public institution?” 

“No, Adela, no! — fourteen thousand a year, Lang- 
dale, and the house in Seamore Place! Bless my soul; 
who would have thought it!” 

“ To me?” interrupted Miss Richmond, astonished by 
her mother’s agitation. 

“ To you, it you will condescend to play your cards 
according to my advice,” said Lady Germaine. “To 
Harry Raymond, Adela; to our own dear Harry! — 
Lord Germaine’s godson, the playmate, of your infan- 
cy!” 

“ Whom you drove from your house, and / from my 
heart!” cried her daughter, with bitterness; “ the only 
man for whom I ever really cared; the only man who 
ever really cared for me; the man who, of all others, 
has a right to detest me!” 

“ Nonsense!” cried Lady Germaine, greatly shocked 
by this unbecoming ebullition of feeling or temper on 
the part of her daughter. “ Harry Raymond is well 
aware of the strictness of my sense of maternal duty, 
and yours of filial submission. He is not silly enough to 


154 


THE FLIRT 


imagine that I should think of allowing my only daugn- 
ter to starve as the wife of a beggarly ensign in the i 
Guards^ or to fancy that you would renounce your duty i 
to your mother for his sake.” i 

“ It must be owned he has had strong evidence to the 
contrary,” cried Adela; “and if he have but a thou- | 
sandth part of the spirit for which I give him credit, no- | 
thing will induce him to renew the offer of his affections i 
where they have been so injuriously treated. I know, i 
I feel, 1 loathe the full extent of my heartless conduct ! 
towards my cousin. I know it by the greatness of my 
original repugnance in attempting the task!” 

“Well, well, do not let us whimper over our repent- 
ance of the blunder,” said Lady Germaine, perceiving 
that the tears stood in her daughter’s eyes. “ It may 
not yet be too late. I have half the morning to dispose 
of^ let us drive to Fulham and see what we can extract 
from your Aunt Raymond. Only to think how that 
woman has got on in the world ! — I wish she would 
teach us her secret.” 

Some glimmering of the truth flashed at that moment 
across Ad e la’s mind ; but she dared not give it utterance. 
She dreaded the irony of her fashionable mother too 
much to express a conviction, that rectitude of purpose 
and conduct, formed the arcanum by which “ those 
Raymonds ” had contrived to ensure the respect of so- 
ciety, — the favour of God and man. 

They were disappointed, however, in their hope of 
W'orming the secrets of the family out of Mrs. Ray-, 
mond’s guileless heart. She had driven into town in 
her pony-chair to visit the person by whom it was ori- 
ginally presented to her, — the kind thoughtful Marga- 
ret,— and to provide mourning for the rest of the fami- 
ly. Although her son, her pride, her Harry, was a 
gainer by the event to an extent little less than miracu- 
lous in the widow’s estimation, s|ie received the an- 
nouncement of Sir Burford’s death with decency and 
respect. The deceased had been a true friend to herj 
had rescued her William— her last-born — the child who 
had nestled in her bosom as she bent over its father’s 
death-bed — from the miseries of foreign banishment. — 
Mighty and various are the sources of good and happy 
feeling that rise in the bosom of a parent! 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


155 

During Ixer mother’s absence, they were welcomed by 
Mary; and Adela Richmond, among all her woes, had 
the comfort of perceiving that if the hand of Time had 
operated disadvantageously on her own countenance, it 
had not altogether spared that of her lovely cousin. 
Mary was paler, thinner, more subdued in tone than 
during her triumphant days of beauty; and while it oc- 
curred yexatiously to Lady Germaine that her niece had 
gained in elegance all. she had lost in freshness, Adela 
did not hesitate to attribute the alteration in her ap- 
pearance to envy of the superior fortunes of her sisters. 
Mary’s rash rejection of the Duke of Dronington’s son 
had not yet travelled so far as Curzon Street. 

Her reception of her aunt and cousin was courteous 
but constrained. Adela and Adela’s mother were now 
j thoroughly seen through and appreciated at Fulham. 

1 Lord Germaine, Harry, poor Sir Burford, old Orme, 

I had each contributed his contingent of intell^ence, in 
addition to the ordinary accusations of societ^and the 
' “young ravens” were, at length, on their guard^gainst 
the bland amenities of both. Lady Germaine, the 
present occasion, was eloquent in expressing her regret 
that she was so seldom able to get as far as Fulham, 
while Mary regretted that she found leisure to come at 
all; nor could the visiters extract more from her con- 
cerning either the last baronet or the present, than that 
Harry was with his regiment in Dublin when the news 
arrived, and was now on his road to Langdale; and that 
Sir Burford had been attacked by banditti while prow- 
ling with Nicodemus in a ruined amphitheatre at Gir- 
genti; that the patron had been only frightened, the di- 
vine seriously injured, — that Dr. Fagg had recovered 
from his wounds, while the baronet died of his fright! 

I She did not think it necessary to gratify the curiosity of 
I the two guests, who were 

“ A little more than kin, and less than kind,” 

by acquainting them that Sir Burford, on excluding his 
ex-tutor from the family living, had enriched him in 
lieu, with an annuity of two thousand a-year, partly as 
an act of compensation, and partly to ensure his ser- 
vices to the cause of those scientific researches so im- 


THE FLIRT 


156 

portant in the estimation of both^ or that he had be- 
queathed a legacy of twenty thousand pounds to her 
mother, a plain gold ring bearing his initials to Marga- 
ret Compton, and to her brother Henry the whole resi- 
due of his fortune, real and personal! The will was 
dated on the day he heard of Remington Compton’s 
union with Miss Raymond; so that it was not Surprising 
he found no time to write and acknowledge his mother’s 
letter containing the intelligence. 

“ This will never do,” cried Lady Germaine, >as she 
got into the carriage to return to town; “ we shall make 
nothing out of these cold formal people. If I can as- 
certain the newspaper report concerning Sir Henry to 
be well founded, we must be ready on his return to 
town, to welcome him with the greatest frankness and 
cordiality, and will soon find him replaced on the 
old footing in Curzon Street. His brigade has been in 
Ireland for the last year, and you are as well aware as 
myself that he had formed no particular connexions in 
society previously to quitting London.” 

But Sir Henry Raymond was destined to disappoint 
all the prognostications of that tender aunt who had so 
magnanimously dismissed her husband’s favourite in his 
little hussar jacket, to starve in the bosom of his fami- 
ly. He had not the least thought of returning to town. 
All his wishes, all his anxieties were centred at Lang- 
dale, and all his family and friends had promised, in 
the course of the summer, to centre there, too; — from 
old Rupert Orme to Margaret’s expected baby". It is 
true, poor Lady Raymond, now infirm and nearly 
doting, had a right to retain it as a Jointure-house for 
life; but she had just sense enough left to feel that she 
should be more comfortable at Mapleton than in the de- 
solate old mansion; and good nature enough to wish to 
leave Langdale free from the gratification of her dear 
Harry’s happy projects. She loved the successor of her 
-unfortunate son because he was the favourite of her own 
Sir Richard; and found in the premature decease of Sir 
Burford rather a topic for lamentation and wonder and 
discussion, than of intense affliction. In truth he had 
been a most uncomfortable son to her; transformed into 
a pedant before he was breeched, she had to thank the 
officiousness of the Duke of Dronington for depriving 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


157 


Irer of half the enjoyments of maternal love. She could 
not but be sensible that Harry, in assisting her removal 
to her pretty cottage at Mapleton, and studying her 
Ipleasure, and caprice, and convenience in every trifle, 
showed more activity in her behalf in the course of eight 
and forty hours, than the F. S. A. fn the course of the 
" whole eight and forty years of his existence. 

Mean while Adela was drinking the dregs of the 
season, with a nauseated palate and tremulous hand. 
Every successive Wednesday she flattered herself with 
a hope of seeing Henry glide into the ball-room at Wil- 
lis’s, in 

The customary suit of Stulz’s black, 

and the graceful urbanity characteristic of the popula- 
rity of a man of twelve thousand per annum. — But 

■ still he came not! — Every week the assembly grew 

- thinner and thinner, till at length nothing remained by 

■ way of partner but the abhorrent congregation of nobo- 
i dies; — the subalterns af the Guards or household bri- 
" gade — the Whitehall and Downing-street penmenders, 
I and a few second-rate men of first-rate fortune, who 
I found it impossible to buy their way into society so long 
i as the higher class of exquisites and inetfables we^’e on 
I the spot to quiz them down:— -but not a glimpse, not a 

prospect of the young Baronet. 

- At length Lady Germaine grew desperate. ' “ This 
" will never do,” mumbled she, as Miss Richmond and 

herself were returning home from a ball in the bright 

- dawn of a July morning; — their flowers and tinsel, the 
„ envy of every Welsh milk-maid swinging her pails 
Bithrough the empty streets,— their haggard eyes and 
-- glaring rouge the scoft* of the artisan plodding to his 

i daily fabours. ‘‘There is no chance of Harry coming 
to town so late in the season. Your trousseau will be 
out of fashion if the match happens to be put otf till 
I next year; besides you are gradually running through 
II all the ball-dresses, and to no purpose;— I must take 
" some decided step!” . ^ 

“1 am sure you would not talk of steps just now, it 
you were as tired as I am,” faltered Adela, yawning 
and closing her eyes. 

VoL. II. 


14 


158 


THE FLIRT 


“ I trust I am too much of a mother to consider my 
own selfish ease before the interests of my family,’’ 
said Lady G., with a significant sneer. I have made 
up my mind to set oft* for Southampton in a day or two^ 
and I will write in an off-hand sort of way to Sir Hen- 
ry, and let him know we think of taking Langdale in 
our way. I shall talk of my abhorrence of inns, and 
claim his hospitality for a single nightj and when once 
we are fairly lodged, he cannot avoid asking us to pro- 
long our stay. Besides, the Droningtons have frequent- 
ly begged me to visit them, should I find my way to that 
part of the country; and when your friend Lady Caro- 
line Ilderfield learns you are so near, it will be impos- 
sible not to invite us to Dronington Manor.” 

“I have nothing to say against the project,” replied 
Adela, “except that it will never be realized. Harry 
will doubtless make some excuse to avoid receiving 
us.” 

“ And do you imagine I would give him the oppor- 
tunity? I shall get a frank to-day and delay sending 
it till to-morrow, as if through a blunder at the post- 
office; which will give me a decent apology for follow- 
ing my letter without waiting his reply. His silence, 
you know, will be supposed to give«consent.” 

From that moment till Lady Germaine’s travelling 
carriage with its imperials, chaise-seats, drop-seats, ' 
wells, and cap-boxes, made its appearance at the door, 
all was confusion in Curzon Street. Jewel-boxes were 
to be stuffed with cotton, --caps, bonnets, and garlands 
suspended^ on tape in their appointed receptacles; the i 
convenience of a favourite gown studied like that of a i 
favourite child, and the comfort of a plaited collerette 
watched over like an infirm parent. “ Pray take care i 
of my blue toque,” cried the mother to her poor, fao-o-ed, 
panting lady’s maid. “Remember I cannot allow any 
thing to interfere with my pink pelisse,” echoed the 
daughter. 

All proceeded prosperously. An unintelligible frank 
was scrawled by Lord Augustus Cecil for the occasion, 
duly delayed, duly despatched, like a balloon sent up 
to try the course of the wind; and four and twenty 
hours afterwards, the grand machine, the dowager cha- 
riot with its appurtenances (the sober butler and flashy 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


159 


femme de chambre grumbling a duet in the dickey be- 
hind j) followed in the same direction. The journey, 
like July journeys in general, was hot, dusty, and irri- 
tating. The vile odours characteristic of the dog-day 
atmosphere of all country-towns, with their tan-pits 
and chandler’s melting-pots, pursued them from Ken- 
sington to Guilford; from Guilford to * * * % where 

they descended from the carriage for the beautification 
of half an hour. Lady Germaine refreshed her com- 
plexion, Adela her tresses; while the sober butler 
washed down the fiery atoms of fifty-five miles of road 
dust, with a pint of still more fiery fluid, looking like 
water and smelling of prussic acid. 

At length a direction post ICT* To Langdale House,; 
greeted their longing eyes; and on turning through a 
swing-gate into a handsome private approach leading ta 
the lodge, the great staring dwelling-house of the Ray- 
monds stood before them. Its former ardent hue was 
reduced, indeed, to the paleness of the butler’s ardent 
decoction; but in spite of a coating of Bernasconi, the 
Baronetal residence looked as hideous as ever. 

“ I shall certainly have it pulled down, and make 
Harry build one nearer to the plantations,” drawled 
Miss Richmond, as they approached the house. 

“Upon my word, this business begins to be a little 
nervous,” observed her mother, stretching on her gloves 
as they passed the drawing-room windows, and drew 
up before the hall doorj “ but thank goodness, I can 
put a good face upon any thing.” 

A bold one, she certainly could; nor was her lady- 
ship the least moved by the consternation apparent in 
the countenances of the footmen and gray-headed house 
steward, who made their appearance on the announce- 
ment of visiters. A parley ensued between {hem and 
her own man, whose complexion now emulated all the 
former fierceness of Langdale House. 

“ Is Sir Henry Raymond at home?” cried Lady Ger- 
maine from the carriage window, growing impatient at 
the delay. 

“The servants say, my lady,” replied he of the 
glowing visage, “that their master can’t see nobody; 
Sir Henry is engaged werry particlar.” 

“ Bid them take in my card,” said her ladyship, be- 


160 


THE FLIRT 


coming a little nervous; which sensation was conside'-^ 
rably increased during the pause that ensued. 

At length, with a most perplexed countenance, Siv 
Henry Raymond made his appearance, and ordering 
the carriage door to be opened, leaned into it in an atti- 
tude plainly evincing he had very little intention the 
steps shouhl be let down to facilitate Lady Germaine’s 
invasion of liis family mansion. For several minutes, 
however, Slie took care that nothing should be heard but 
her warm congratulations on his recent good fortune 
and invariable good looks; while Adela, on whom the 
latter were not thrown away, threw herself back in the 
carriage and said not a word. For once her feelings- 
w'ere genuine. Her heart throbbed less at the sight of 
the Baronet than of her cousin Harry. 

“ 1 am half afraid your ladyship has not received my 
letter,” said Sir Henry at last, and with tolerable firm- 
ness, “ or you would scarcely brave the want of accom- 
modation 1 was unfortunately compelled to announce. 
The truth is, my dear Lady Germaine, I have not a bed 
I can presume to offer to you or Miss Richmond. My 
mother, the Comptons, and Germaine’s, — my whole fa- 
mily, indeed, — are united here for the ceremony of to- 
morrow, and— — 

“Ceremony!” reiterated the dowager, with a horri- 
ble presentiment rattling in her throat. “ I was not 
aware ” 

“And as my marriage with Miss Compton will be 
solemnized in the family chapel at Compton Park, I am 
of course not at liberty to issue invitations to such of 
my own family as are strangers to Alicia’s. Perhaps, 
on your return, your ladyship may favour us with a visit 
at Langdale; but at present, I can scarcely hope to in- 
duce you to put up with the inconveniences and irregu- 
larities attending events of this description. We are 
in a sad state of confusion!” 

Not half so sad as that, of the Dowager. Even the 
excellent “face,” the subject of her recent boasting, 
was put to the blush. Her congratulations, and apolo- 
gies, and explanations, were blended into a general 
stammer: wliile Harry stood bowing and smiling over 
the carriage steps, whose compact economy he was so 
inhospitably careful to avoid disturbing. 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


161 . 

The only intelligible words of her oration formed its 
concluding phrase — “ Pray tell the postboys to drive to 
the Dolphin at Southampton.** Adela mean while said 
nothing. She was crying bitterly under her Mechlin 
veil. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

How great aoe’er your rigours are, 

With them alone I’ll cope ; 

1 can endure my own despair, 

But not another’s hope. 

Walsh. 

From Southampton, induced by the restlessness, 
partly of indisposition, partly of vexation, Lady Ger- 
maine was tempted to cross to Dieppe^ and after a 
summer and autumn unprofilably passed in dancing at- 
tendance on the Duchesse de Berri, and avoiding the 
dancing attendance of the very unacceptable throng of 
her countrymen assembled in that bone-carving town^ 
she was compelled, by the advice of the physicians, to 
repair for the winter months to the south of France. 
The health of the over-excited, over- fed, over-heated, 
over-fatigued woman of fashion, was already broken by 
a thousand infirmities. Her temper (or, as she termed 
it, her mind) had been long preying on her bodyj and 
she became daily more fractious and more unamuseable 
than ever. 

There is perhaps no moment in which ^he virtuous 
mother enjoys so plentifully the product of the good 
seed she has sown, as during those irritable years wliich 
precede the approach of age. Not yet wholly weaned 
from the world, she requires amusement, combined 
with forbearance towards the listless discontent with 
which the hollow diversions of society begin to inspire 
an immortal spirit, verging towards the confines of 
eternity. At such a time, the soothing attentions of a 
daughter form a gentle solace to the ** cradle of de- 


162 


THE FLIRT 


dining Aifection never speaks so cheeriilgly 

as with the still small voice it assumes to comfort the 
sick and the sorrowful. 

But Lady Germaine had sowed the wind, to reap the 
whirlwind. Adela had never learned to respect her 
mother in health, and took little heed of her indisposi- 
tion. Shegrundoled without intermission during a driz- 
zly winter at Toulouse, where nothing presented itself 
available to her views, or cheering to her despondency. 

The Prefect was an old beau of seventy-five; and 
the only English residents were a married clergyman, 
a medical student dying of a decline, and a half-pay 
captain in the navy, who called her “Miss.” 

H-er prospects brightened, howeyer, with the spring. 
Lady Germaine’s medical attendants insisting that a 
return to her native latitudes must be fatal, thought fit 
to suggest the baths of the Pyrennees; and away they 
w^ent to Bagneres, to regret that they had not preferred 
Barege; and after quitting it, and establishing them- 
selves at Barege, to pine after Bagneres. Discontent- 
ed with themselves, they were out of humour with 
every thing else. 

There was one advantage, however, at Bagneres, 
wdiich reconciled them to a thousand deficiencies. 
There was an English lord! — unmarried, rich, good- 
looking — with an air of sentimental misanthropy, a 
pair of large mustaches, and of small Andalusian po- 
nies. Adela had not been there a week before she 
made up her mind to find her way into his c/iar-a-^onc; 
and to the great delight of mother and daughter, their 
advances were met cheerfully and a great deal more 
than lialf-vvay, by the Marquis of Stoneham. 

The heir of Dronington Manor was now a very diffe- 
rent person from the puny, effeminate, self-conceited 
lordling rejected by Mary Raymond three years before. 
A tour of Europe h^d strengthened his mind and weak- 
ened his self-confidence — darkened his complexion, and 
brightened his understanding. Nothing can be more 
ungenerous than to infer too much of si man’s character, 
from his days of whelphood. The dullest youths are 
often fathers to the most intelligent men; and the 
schooling of society has converted many a boor and 
many a bore into refined and entertaining companions. 


OF TEN SEASONS. 


103 


But it was not the improvement visible either in his 
physical or moral aspect, which rendered so delightful 
to the Richmonds his undisguised pretensions to their 
favour. They had not forgotten the impression pro- 
duced on their minds during their disastrous journey 
through Hampshire the preceding season, by the fine 
■woods and venerable turrets of Dronington Manor. 
What a world of enjoyment was centred in its thriving 
timber! — What a life of luxurious ease, of velvet and 
ermine, of diamond and gilt-plate, might be passed be- 
nejith that lordly roof! — What splendour, what pomp, 
what adulation, awaited its future Duchess! — As they 
drove through many a village and town, manifestly de- 
pendencies of the feof and graced by countless copies 
of the “Ilderfield Arms,” each illustrating some varia- 
tion in a village Landseer’s notions of a salamander 
(the crest of tne family,) or a brace of gryphons (its 
supporters,) the Dowager had vainly tried to call to 
mind all that she had ever seen or heard of the heir-ap- 
parent of the Droningtons. 

But Adela remembered only, that Lord Stonehain 
was a short-sighted, long-backed young nobleman, who 
never could manage to manoeuvre more than the right 
leg in dancing a quadrille, hopping about on the left 
like a Numidian crane; and Lady Germaine could re- 
call to mind nothing but that his younger brother Ho- 
race Ilderfield, in proposing for her daughter’s hand, 
had assured her it was very unlikely the Marquis should 
ever marry. But this she knew was an assertion which 
younger sons of the nobility usually append to the 
parchment of their commission, or the stock receipt for 
their £ 5000 . 

The Dowager’s recovery outstripped even the pre- 
dictions of the physicians. Whether the air of^ the 
Pyrennees or the heir of Dronington Manor was chiefly 
concerned in her amendment, it might be difficult to 
decide; but she was now able to ascend mountains, de- 
scend into valleys, — defy sun, wind, and dust, when- 
ever her chaperonship was in request.. Even Adela, 
whom a year’s do-nothingness had in a great measure 
restored to her original freshness of complexion, grew 
everyday more handsome and more graceful under the 


164 


THE FLERT 


influence of the Marquis of Stoneham’s attentions. 
“ La Belle Analaise” was the boast of the baths; and 
his lordship, who had been peregrinating among the 
dark-browed beauties of Spain, and the dingy sultanas 
of Morocco, could not sutficiently admire the snowy 
purity of her complexion, the eftulgent lustre of those 
soft blue eyes, so benignantly bent upon himself. The 
young lord must have been a monster to receive the 
advances of his fair countrywoman with ungracious- 
ness. 

But there was unquestionably something more than 
mere graciousness in his mode of seizing Adela’s hand, 
a I’Anglaise, whenever they met; and of tendering his 
arm to her in all those rural excursions and evening 
pic-nics, which the early hours of the Pyrennean wa- 
tering-places render so charming a source of amuse- 
ment and sentiment. Lord Stoneham and Miss Rich- 
mond were continually rambling together in the twilight, 
collecting glow-worms and quoting Byron; he taught 
her Spanish, while she affected to rhodomontade about 
eternal attachments, and indulge in a world of romantic- 
isms. Nor did his lordship ever seem weary of listen- 
ing to her shallow discourse, which he probably con- 
structed into naivete. He seemed to glory in hearing 
her reiterate, again and again, that the cottages they 
passed sheltered among branching cork-trees, with 
bee-hives basking against their white walls, and dirty 
little children basking at their open doors, afforded just 
such a home as the presence of those she loved could 
render delightful. Of course the Marquis was equally 
at liberty to hope that “ the presence of those she loved’* 
alluded to that of a happy individual with a salamander 
crest and gryphon supporters; and to exercise his elo- 
quence in seducing her to believe that Dronington 
Manor might be rendered a charming residence under 
similar influence. But Lord Stoneham was no longer 
the lump of inanity and affectation, the self-conceited 
dandy which had deigned of old to nod its notice to 
Mary Raymond in the Langdale parlour. He was now” 
gentle, gentlemanly, well-bred, and consequently diffi- 
dent; and evidently hesitated in applying to himself 
the allusions of Adela, and the maternal encourage- 


TEN SEASONS. 


165 


inent of Lady Germaine. Once or twice, indeed, he 
alluded to the marriage of her cousin Lord Germaine, 
with whom he had been at college, and uttered some- 
thing very like an expression of doubt and anxiety lest 
they might never, become more nearly connected; an 
apprehension which his fair auditresses would have 
given worlds to sooth with an assurance that the mea- 
sure of their relationship depended wholly on him- 
self. 

The summer wore away in rides, drives, excursions, 
fetes, and sentimentalization by hill and dale, — among 
the mountain forests or in the deep valleys; and then 
the Dowager, finding her own inauspicious month of 
August approach, arrive, and pass away without any 
definite proposal, began to grow fidgetty, and attempt 
to accelerate his lordship’s movements by frequent al- 
lusions to her return to England. Nor were her anxie- 
ties decreased, wlxen one day Adela, returning from 
her daily ride with Lord Stoneham, assured her that 
an epistle addressed in her cousin Harry’s hand-writing 
had been put into her lover’s hands as they stopped to 
inquire for letters. 

“ You may rely on it, my dear,” cried Lady Ger- 
maine, throwing down the French novel she was read- 
ing, “ that Lord Stoneham has thought it necessary 
to apply to Sir Henry Raymond as the head of your fa- 
mily. It is quite a piece of old-fashioned llderfield 
politeness.” 

“ It seems they have been long acquainted,” said 
her daughter. “ But really I think he might have been 
satisfied with your approval. What has the head of 
the family to do with the business, so long as my own 
mother sanctions his proposals?” 

“Very true, my love; but I have no doubt he 
means it as a mark of respect. You know the Dron- 
ingtons were always considered quizzy good sort of 
people.” 

“And yet I think my friend Lady Caroline, and 
more especially my old flirt Horace llderfield, knov/ 
more of the world than to maintain this sort ot frozen 
formality. I really expect their brother to demean 
himself a little less like Sir Charles Grandison in the 
ped^r parlour. I don’t half like his writing to Har- 


166 


THE FLIRT 


ry Raymond without saying a word to us on the sub- 
ject* 

Why, it is not quite impossible he may have thought 
proper to ask his advice as a friend. And really Sir 
Henry’s conduct has been so very strange, has exhibit- 
ed so little gratitude for the kindness I showed him 
during his childhood, that I scarcely know what re- 
liance may be placed on his good-will. He may insi- 
nuate to Lord Stoneham a thousand ill-natured things 
concerning you.” 

“ That I am satisfied he w'ould not!” cried Adela. 
“ I know Harry; that is, I did know him, and have 
little reason to believe him changed. I am persuaded 
that even my abominable conduct towards him would 
not induce him to act injuriously towards me. Harry 
was always the kindest creature in the world.” 

“ Lady Raymond may have produced a revolution 
in his character. Remember all your Aunt Raymond’s 
letter said concerning his dear Alicia’s influence over 
him.” 


“ She would not render him an evil speaker or a 
backbiter, were it twice as great!” cried Adela Rich- 
mond in a more animated tone than she was apt to as- 
sume. 

“ But how shall we find out the purport of his cor- 
respondence with Stoneham?” cried Lady Germaine, 
startled by her daughter’s petulance. Did you observe 
any thing in his manner affording a hope that the ex- 
planation will soon take place?” 

“ No, he placed the letter in his pocket; and was 
only twice as silent as usual during our short ride 
home. 

Strange to relate, this uncommunicative mood seemed 
rather to increase than to diminish. For several days, 
for a week, for ten days, for a fortnight. Lady Germaine 
laboured without ceasing to provoke an explanation, 
and never lighted upon the propitious vein; while poor 
Adela sighed away her time, and began to wax ex- 
ceeding weary of the procrastinations of her lover. 
Every day he grew more silent, more ruminative; and 
had he not been heir-apparent to a dukedom, and un- 
married, she would have voted him a horrible bore. At 
length even the Dowager, who had been a preacher of 


OP TEN SEASONS. 


m 

patience throughout the affair, grew positively indig- 
nant at the man’s stupidity; and having determined to 
rouse his dormant faculties by a coup demairiy affected 
a sudden change of plan. Instead of persisting in her 
return to England, she announced her intention of pro- 
ceeding to Italy for the winter. She entertained very 
little doubt that the young Marquis would be at Adela’s 
feet within four and twenty hours after this horrific in- 
telligence. 

To her ladyship’s unspeakable consternation, how- 
ever, Lord Stoneham with a gentle smile and tranquil 
voice expressed infinite regret at hearing they were to 
part so soon; and his “infinite regret” was set forth 
with a degree of listlessness which would have better 
become an apology for having trod on her poodle’s tail. 
— What could he mean by such insoucianceP — what 
could he mean by alluding to his approaching voyage 
from Bordeaux to Southampton, while she was talking 
of hers, from Marseilles to Genoa? — What possessed 
the man V or rather what had so long possessed herself, 
to allow him to dawdle on without any explicit decla- 
ration of his intentions?— She resolved to bring the bu- 
siness to a crisis: and fancying that the sight of a tra- 
velling carriage and trunks might be more effective 
than a mere threat. Lady Germaine actually proceeded 
in her preparations for departure; her passport was vise 
for Italy, and she went so far as to take leave of her 
Bagneres friends. 

The evening preceding the fatal day of her journey ar- 
rived; and all her guests having uttered their adieux,— 
in order to leave an opportunity for what they regarded 
as a farewell between two young people actually be- 
trothed, — Lady Germaine and Adela grew extremely 
nervous — breathed short — spoke incoherently. They 
saw from Lord Stoneham’s brightened eye and flushea 
cheek that he was on the brink of a declaration; — pitied 
his trepidation, and strove to lessen it by increased ur- 
banity and an air of tender protection. 

His lordship’s scruples probably gave way before 
such an excess of kindness and consideration; for after 
much stammering, blushing, and breathlessness, he, at 
last found courage to articulate that, “it gave him infi- 
nite pleasure, — that nothing "on earth could be more 


168 


THE FLIRT 


gratifying to his feelings, —than to knovv, on parting 
from such esteemed friends as Lady Germaine and Miss 
Richmond, — that when they met again it would be un- 
der a mutual connexion so much more interesting^” 

His esteemed friend, Lady Germaine naturally thought 
this a very singular mode of tendering his hand to her 
daughter's acceptance^ and his esteemed friend, Miss 
Richmond, voted him very cool and very self-assured. 
But then he was heir to a dukedom! 

“ When I received Sir Henry Raymond’s first reply 
to my proposals,” persisted the agitated Marquis, “ I 
scarcely thought myself justified, my dear madam, in 
referring the matter to yourself. But from his second 
letter, which reached me only this afternoon,' and is of 
a far more satisfactory nature, I now venture to trust 
that all is settled, and that I am the liappiest of men!” 

Lady Germaine naturally conceived that her daugh- 
ter had been playing her false, and had chosen to con- 
ceal Lord Stoneham’s previous proposals from her 
knowledge; while Adela secretly opined that her lover’s 
mind was bewildered, and that he understood not the 
meaning of his own words. 

“Having been so fortunate as to succeed in dispel- 
ling the prejudices of the woman of my heart,” cried 
he, “1 am not, I trust, too bold in expressing a hope 
that your ladyship will adopt as a relation one whom 
you have kindly permitted to aspire to the title of 
friend.” 

“My dear Stoneham!” ejaculated her ladyship ma- 
ternally, — applying her handkerchief to her eyes, and 
deciding that her future son-in-law was a tedious foql. 

“ When I quitted England under-such miserable au- 
spices,” he continued, “ 1 had very very little hope of 
returning to it the happy man I now feel. Nay! — even 
when I arrived in the Pyrennees, how little did I anti- 
cipate that an accidental encounter with your ladyship 
would re-assure my anxieties; — would satisfy me that 
she was still unmarried — that half my fears had been 
proved groundless by her refusal of those brilliant offers 
which have doubtless done homage to the loveliness of 
so exquisite a being.” 

“ Yes! indeed,” replied the Dowager, greatly mysti- 
fied, but feeling that some sort of reply was indispe*nsa- 


OP TEN SEASONS. 


169 


ble. “ 1 hope I may acknowledge, without indiscre- 
tion, that she has refused some of the most advantageous 
matches in England.” 

“My dear mamma!” interposed Adela, with a very 
proper blush. 

“I knew it — I was sure of it!” cried the young Mar- 
quis. “Permit me. Lady Germaine, to gratify my 
pride, — my vanity, — my selfishness. — by the confessionj 
for till I perused Sir Henry’s letter this evening, I was, 
of course, unaware of the sentiments I have been so for- 
tunate as to excite.” 

“Sir Henry Raymond!” — exclaimed Adela, still 
more and more amazed. “ What can have given him 
grounds for such an insinuation?” — 

“He assures me,” replied Lord Stoneham, modest- 
ly, “that it has long been the opinion of his family, 
— nay! — Mary herself has, at last, been wrought upon 
to acknowledge, that she has long repented her precipi- 
tate refusal of a man so affectionately devoted to her; 
and Miss Raymond deigns to confess, in a postscript to 
her brother’s letter, that it did not need the alterations 
etfected by time in my boyish absurdities, to dispose 
her in my favour. In short, my dear madam, the 
whole Raymond family have given their consent to our 
marriage.” 

“Those Raymonds!” faintly articulated Lady Ger- 
maine, as she fell back in her chair. 


VoL. II. 


15 


170 


THE FLIRt 


CONCLUSION. 


Happy they — the happiest of their kind ! 

Thomson- 

It was a very happy party that assembled at Lang-^ 
dale the following Christmas, to celebrate the christen- 
ing of little Rupert Compton, heir to the new-fangled 
house of Soho. Mrs. Raymond had the happiness of 
seeing herself surrounded* by the smiling faces of her 
sons and daughters, — by atfectionate, and grateful 
hearts. Amidst all their prosperity they had not for- 
gotten, and could not forget, the personal privations by 
which she had managed to secure to their childhood the 
comforts bestowed on the oft'spring of more fortunate 
parents. They remembered what a mother she had 
been to themj and vied with each other in respect and 
tenderness. 

“ Harry — for none of them could ever manage to re- 
gard the thoughtless, free-handed, frank-hearted young 
guardsman as “ Sir Henry,” — was still no less the 
lover than the husband of the giddy Alicia. Margaret 
and her grave and studious Remington, who, in spite of 
his early years, was already considereil the leader of 
his party in the House of Commons, — had some difii- 
culty in repressing the sallies of the new. master of 
Langdale, and Lord and Lady Germaine, so as to suit 
the sobriety of old Rupert Orme; while the bride and 
bridegroom, the Marquis of Stoneham and his beautiful 
Mary, whose course of true love had run the roughest, 
or, at least, the slowest of the whole family, divided 
their leisure between Dronington Manor and the less 
formal circle where they were still at .liberty to select 
each other from the rest of the company. Four happier 
or more cheerful couples it would have, perhaps, been 


OF TEN SEASON^. 


171 


difficult to find; nor was their youthful gaiety moderated 
by the presence of Charles, (the young artillery man, 
who, as the only bachelor of the tribe, was beginning 
to be a first favourite with Mr. Orme,) or William, who 
had not yet assumed the graver aspect and sterner du- 
ties of his future profession. Well might Mrs. Ray- 
mond exult in the mercies of Providence, and the good 
fruits brought forth by her maternal culture! 

The name of Adela was occasionally mentioned 
among them with regret; and if some little portion of 
blame was permitted to mingle with the observations of 
the female moiety of the Langdale circle, it attached 
itself exclusively to her odious mother. They were all 
willing to admit that their pretty cousin was a charming 
creature before the precepts and example of Lady Ger- 
maine transformed her to a match-making coquette; 
and to hope that the unsuccessful flirt of so many sea- 
sons would, at last, secure some eligible establishment, 
calculated to set her mother’s manoeuvres at rest, and 
restore her to the peace of mind and respectability of 
her early years. 

But Providence, which had so long farthered the 
wishes of “those Raymonds,” was in this instance in- 
exorable! — On the following Christmas, they had pre- 
cisely the same cousinly prayer to put forward; and 
with the greater zeal, that Adela and her mother were 
said to have exposed themselves to the ridicule of a 
large circle of Italian friends, by their ignorance that 
the wife of Prince Borghese was still living, and their 
anxiety to supply her rank as “ absent without leave.” 

But neither Naples nor Florence, — neither Rome nor 
Vienna, — have proved more satisfactory than the origi- 
nal orbit pursued by the cunning dowager. Vafnly has 
she spread her -nets in every climate, extending her 
blandishments throughout all nations and languages; — 
“Jews, Christians, and Turks,” members of the Greek 
and Romish churches, Lutherans, Calvinists, Unita- 
rians, or Presbyterians, — it mattered nothing to her 
ladyship. Having discerned the hopelessness of seek- 
ing a British coronet for the notorious flirt, she is^ be- 
coming doubly solicitous to ensure a place in the aristo- 
cracy of some* other country. Even Sir Frederick 
Courtenay is disposed of to one of the giggling Miss 


172 


THE FURT OF TEN SEASONS. 


Dechiminis, who fell in love with his heroics; and whose 
vulgar brother was the object of one of Adela’s unsuc- 
cessful manoeuvres in the course of her Italian tour. 

In short, though Mary is now Duchess of Dronington, 
and Margaret, Lady Soho; — though the Honourable 
Lady Raymond and the Right Honourable Lady Ger- 
maine are leading members of the fashionable coteries, 
Adela is still “Miss Richmond,” and her mother an 
infirm, peevish, and obscure dowager; hopeless in their 
present dilapidated aspect of exciting even the notice 
of Captaip Raymond Orme, M. P., or even of the Re- 
verend William, the young Rector of Langdale. “ The 
flirt of ten seasons ” is now wintering at Brighton, lay- 
ing active siege to the heart of a jaundiced Bhurtpoor, 
K.C.B. while Lady Germaine not only despairs of the 
result, but can scarcely endure to sanction a scheme, 
the utmost success of which would leave the destinies 
of her daughter so immeasurably below the level of even 
the least fortunate of “those Raymonds!” 





* 





HEARTS ANR B1AII10ND8; 

OB, 

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Mopsa.—l love stories in print, a* life ; for then we are sure they are true. 
Autolyctis.— Here's one to a very doleful tune. 

Jtfiipsa. — Is it true, think you ? 

^utolycus.—Vety true. 

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:aaieAL< Af iafc J 


CHAPTER I. 


11 me semble que Ton dit les choses encore plus finement qu’on ne peut 
les 6crire. La Broyere. 

One morning last spring, the busy idleness of a Lon-^ 
don life placed me for a few hours in company with old 
Lady Ciendenriis (the most anecdotic of the dowagers 
surviving the court of Queen Charlotte, and the bril- 
liant era of D House,) while she sought out a 

fashionable miniature painter to perpetuate the beauties 
of her niece. Lady Emily Derwent. With true femi- 
nine indecision of choice, we visited every British artist 
of renown in this delicate department of the art, and, 
at length, set off in pursuit of a new wonder; — some 
wild man of the mountains, a member of all the acade- 
mies in Europe, who had been recommended to the no- 
tice of Lady Clendennis by one of the fashionable lion- 
feeders of May Fair. 

Signore Ambrazani was to be found on one of the 
stories of a large mansion in a populous and fashionable 
street at the west end of the town; a house such as may 
occasionally be noticed in the best situations; wearing, 
in defiance of the wide sashes, plate glass, Bernasconi 
cement, mahogony window-frames, ami architectural 
breadth of its modernized neighbourhood, the same ill- 
pointed, dilapidated -looking frontage, wainscoted door 
with projecting architrave and a<ljacent link extinguisher, 
two-paned windows, and roof of irregular red tiles, 
with which it adorned or disfigured the reign of the 
I first George. 

On descending into a hall below the level of the 
^street, the pavement of humid and chequered marble, 
the staircase creaking and careless of the perpendicular, 
of which the worn-out and obsolete parquet was une- 
plipsed by the superfluity of a carpet — all spoke of a 


176 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


past century. The place was old-fashioned and gloomy^: 
and while we mounted to the studio of the artist, I 
could not forbear commenting to Lady Clendennis on 
the improvement of our domestic architecture, con- 
trasted with the paltry wooden pilasters, painted cor- 
nices, and heavy Dutch carving, to be found in the in- 
teriors of the last century. From Blenheim Castle to 
Signore Ambrazani’s lodgings, all that our grandfathers 
have left us of this description, is cold, formal, and 
graceless. 

But the Dowager bestowed no notice on my tirade. 
She was gazing around her with an air of mournful re- 
cognition; and even on our introduction to the painting- 
room and red morocco cases of the artist, I observed 
that she was far less intent on criticising the frizzed 
and sevign6d goddesses enshrined therein, than in 
pacing his extensive apartment, seating herself in a 
high-bracked chair of exploded outline and dimensions, 
and regarding with unaccountable earnestness an old 
folding screen of worn-out japan, such as might have 
sheltered the coterie of my Lady Lizard, or some 
“ lady in a sacque,” of the time of Addison and Steele. 

Nor was the harangue of poor Ambrazani better re- 
ceived than the effusions of my own eloquence. He 
praised himself for some minutes in uninterrupted flu- 
ency; — enumerated the number of crowned heads whom 
he had disfigured for the decoration of diplomatic snuff- 
boxes, and the edification of posterity;— specified his 
academic honours, and the titles of his daily sitters;— 
while the attention of his auditress was as far from the 
spot and the hour, as though she had 

eaten of the insane root 
That takes the reason prisoner. 

“ Why were you so ungracious to that poor man?” 
said I, as we regained the carriage to pursue our airing 
along the King’s Road. ‘^You turned away in the 
midst of a florid description of his parting interview with 
the Pope; and while he was kissing the hand of the em- 
press, your notice was riveted with the scrutiny of a 
broker on the crazy old sofas gracing his painting- 
room.” 

^‘With the scrutiny of fond and painful remink- 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


177 


cence,” replied Lady Clendennis, in a melancholy tone, 
“That house was once familiar to me as my own. It 
was formerly the residence of my friend, the beautiful 
Lady Stratherne; and had not an alteration in the num- 
bers deceived me, I should not have entered it on any 
casual errand.” 

“Of Lady Stratherne!” I exclaimed. “ Could that 
gloomy, tasteless den be the abode of a person I have 
heard mentioned in terms of such rapturous admiration, 
as the gayest, and fairest, and frailest of the beauties of 
Ranelagh?” 

“ Tasteless and gloomy are comparative terms. Fifty 
years ago, when our squares were sheep-folds, and the 
Park an orchard, there were few better or more elegant- 
ly appointed private houses in the metropolis, than poor 
Ambrazani’s lodgings. All our luxury and progress in 
the decorative arts are of recent growth; as your recol- 
lections of Buckingham House, and your present view 
of the old palace ot St. James’s, must suffice to prove. 
My interest in its faded and unrenovated furniture 
arose, however, less from any critical philosophy, than 
from its association in my mind with a thousand scenes 
of intense and mournful interest, in which I was at once 
a spectatress and an actress. How strange, how ap- 
palling, to see whole generations swept before us into 
the grave, with all those mighty passions so uncontrol- 
lable during their mortal career,—- and already forgotten 
as if their sorrows had been endured, their struggles 
over-mastered in vain! — Yet a few years, and I — the 
last witness of that domestic tragedy — shall be in my 
coffin; — and my remembrances buried in the bottomless 
pit of oblivion!” 

“True!” said I, willing to incite her to communica- 
tiveness. “Ambrazani’s furniture will find its way to 
some old worm-eaten depository of second-hand goods; 
the house will be pulled down to make way for a better; 
and the very shadow of the shade of your friend — the 
last echo of the ‘trumpet with a silver sound ’ that ce- 
lebrated the beauties and follies of Lady Stratherne — 
have died away. But should this be? — From century 
to century, mankind is taught to weep over the sacrifice 
of Virginia, or thrill while the knife of Medea is sus- 
pended over her innocent children; though on every 
side scenes of modern tragedy are enacted, in which 


17S 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


the fatal influence of human passion implies that the 1 
dispensation vouchsafed for the purification of the moral j 
world, has been bestowed in vain.” 

It was to this conversation, and the recollections 
freshened in the mind of Lady Clendennis by many an 
hour passed in the old house during the progress of the ; 
miniature, that I am indebted for the following narrative, j 


Family disputes — -too intricate with chancery suits 
and female resentments to be worth recounting, — de- 
tained me in the seclusion of an uneventful country life 
from the period of my mother’s death till I had more 
than attained my majority. Educated in the neighbour- 
hood of London, with so limited a number of the daugh- 
ters of the nobility that our little household disdained 
to call itself a school, I returned no more to the metro- 
polis till, in the dangerous dawn of womanhood, I was 
required to preside over my father. Lord Chester’s es- 
tablishment. He was a man absorbed in politics and 
clubsj caring very little and seeing very littl§ of our 
house in Grosvenor Square, so long as his other house — 
the House was open; while his sister. Lady Hereward, 
the person delegated to initiate my rusticity into the 
customs and usances of the fashionable world, was too 
much of a valetudinarian and too innately selfish, to 
renounce her personal ease for the duty of accompany- 
ing me into society. She contented herself with making 
me the companion of her daily drives from the bird- 
fancier’s and lace-menders, to the dealers in old china 
and japan; haranguing me by the way on the awkward- 
ness of my demeanour, the Anglicized fashion of my 
dress, the matter-of-fact simplicity of my discourse, and 
my total ignorance of the forms of a circle which, to 
her own knowledge, I had never entered. She was 
fond of talking of the gay world ;-^describing the balls 
at Almack’s, and the pleasures of Ranelagh; — then, 
just when my girlish fancy was delirious with a vision of 
stars, and garters, feathers, hoops, and diamond giran- 
doles, would consign me to my cheerless home, and re- 
turn to the joys of hers — an aviary of avordivats, and 
a potion “as before” of Hoffman’s elixir. 

One fine morning at the beginning of spring, some ex-- 
traordinary impulse of energy induced poor Lady Here- 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


17D 


Waltl to quit her chariot in the ring, and leaning upon 
my arm, supervize the frisky sports with which het 
obese spaniel attempted to welcome the return of sum- 
mer by rolling upon the sooty herbage of the park^ and 
as I was casting a melancholy glance on the laborious 
liveliness of poor Phyllis, and reflecting on the drowsy 
quartette formed by the indolent dowager, her pampered 
footman, toddling dog, and dispirited niece, we were 
passed by a phaeton, the brilliant style of which attract- 
ed my attention. 

It was driven by a distinguished-looking man, in the 
prime of life; by whose side lounged one of the very 
loveliest figures I ever beheld, I know not whether I 
were most struck by the beauty of the countenance 
shaded by her spreading hat, or by the intelligent 
smile, varying from compassion to recognition, with 
which she surveyed me. The smile was followed by 
a half-doubting bow, before 1 was able to retrace in 
the beautiful stranger a favourite companion of my 
youth. But while the phaeton rolled onwards anfid the 
volumes of dust which, previously to the introduction 
of water-carts, deteriorated so much the pleasures of 
the ring, she repeatedly kissed her hand with an air of 
delighted surprise. 

“You are acquainted, then, with Lady Stratherne?” 
exclaimed my aunt, as we hobbled along. “ By what 
strange interposition of the Devonshire pixies, did she 
ever find her way to the banks of the Dart?” 

“Lady Stratherne.^ Oh, no!— That is Lady Isabella 
Fitzmaurice, — who was for some years my companion 
under the care of Madame Galiardim” 

“And who is now the reigning queen of modern 
fashion. I congratulate you, my dear Sophia! — You 
must renew your acquaintance with your friend; she 
will perhaps good-naturedly take upon herself some of 
those duties which my brother has so inconsiderately 
charo-ed upon my shoulders* As if it were possible for 
a woman in my state of health, without half a nerve 
left, to go racketing about night after night.” 

“ But, my dear aunt, how will Isabella ever find me 
out? — Are you acquainted with her?” 

“Of course! Lady Stratherne occupies a place in 
society which renders it necessary we should be ac- 
quainted. I know' her intimately;— that is to say, as 


180 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


well as one ever knows people in London. We send 
each other cards once a-year^ and if I were still min- 
gling in the crowds of the great world, we should also 
exchange courtesies^ — as it is, we have never met.” 

“Then what chance have 1 that she will discover my 
abode in this wide wilderness of London?” 

“You really talk, Lady Sophia, as if Lord Ches- 
ter’s residence were as much a matter of mystery as 
that of some disbanded Captain of the Train Bands. 
Pray learn to entertain a more becoming sense of your 
own dignity.” 

“ Believe me, I shall feel the very highest respect 
for it, should it bring about a meeting between Isabella 
Fitzmaurice and myself.” 

And a speedy opportunity occurred for my perform- 
ance of the promise. On the following day, Isabella — 
gay and gracious and aft'ectionate as when we enacted 
Helena and Hermia together over our Italian gram- 
mar, — was seated in my dreary apartment, reproaching 
me with my tardiness in acquainting her with my resi- 
dence in town. 

“Do not fancy, dear Sophy,” said she, “that you 
have brought your blue eyes to London for no better 
purpose than to sit in this desolate drawing-room, knot- 
ting fringe. By the by, who was that hideosity of a 
chaperon with whom you were making yourself ridi- 
culous yesterday, for the entertainment of the Park?” 

“My aunt. Lady Hereward; — an acquaintance, I 
fancy, of your ladyship’s,” said I, swelling with offend- 
ed dignity. 

“No! my ladyship has not the slightest acquaintance 
with any person capable of such deliberate quizzicality. 
But what has she to do with you 5 — and w'hat have you 
to do with yourself?” 

“To the first question I must answer every things 

to the last, nothing! Lady Hereward has bee;i com- 
missioned by my father to preside over my pleasures; 
and the manner in which she acquits herself of the task 
leaves me to the resource of the knotting shuttle w’hich 
so grievously moves your disdain.” 

“And are you happy, Sophy, in this semi -existent 
stateof enjoyment?” inquired Lady Stratherne,acquiring 
for a moment a more serious cast of countenance. 

“Happy? — no, indeed!” 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


181 


Her face brightened at the prospect of a partner in 
that lassitude of discontent and ennuis which 1 then re- 
garded as the mere entr'acte of a life of pleasure. 

“ I would give worlds to return to Devonshire,” said 
I5 “where, though condemned to a monotonous mode 
of existence and the control of two rigid maiden aunts, 

I had at least the enjoyments of a country life — air, ex- 
ercise, and leisure — undisturbed by the trammels and 
rumours of the great world.” 

“ — By Lady Hereward and her dropsical lapdog. 
Well! well! waste not a breath in farther murmurs. 
You belong to me nowj — in token of which exchange 
of suzerainty, I carry you off in triumph to dine with 
me; that I may gratify my pride with the exhibition of 
my little dominion, including my loving lord and my lit- 
tle girls. Prepare yourself to be enchanted with us all.” 

“Very willingly. But I fear, dear Isabella! I must 
defer the process of enchantment till I have spoken to 
my father. It is not impossible he may return home 
to dinner.” 

“ But it is quite impossible he should have the honour 
of Lady Sophia Meredy th’s company. No, no ! — I will 
leave a note for him, and explain every thing.” 

Nothing appeared so strange to me as the easy self- 
possession with which Isabella disposed of the authori- 
ty of a person so awful in my estimation: — “Are you, 
then, acquainted with my father?” 

“ He knows me; which is quite as much to the pur- 
pose. Once a year he honours the gathering together 
of the political menagerie at our table; and twice or 
thrice as often, we look at each other with a trifling 
gesture of recognition, at some ministerial squeeze. 
Assure yourself he will be delighted to find that you 
have fallen into my hands. No one keeps a more ac- 
curate tariff of the thrones and dominions of fashionable 
life, than our good Lord Chester.” 

The idea that my father could be “ delighted ” by 
any circumstance involving the interests of my neglect- 
ed self, served to amuse me while I was preparing to 
accompany Isabella; and in a few minutes we were in her 
blue vis-a-vis (such at that epoch was the flagrant taste 
for a showy equipagCj) dashing along Brook Street at 
a rate which would have terrified Lady Hereward be* 
yond all redemption from the aid of Hoffman’s elixir. 

VoL. IL 16 


182 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


I was, indeed, as she predicted, enchanted with the 
fairy realm governed by Lady Stratherne; — with her 
beautiful children, her brilliant establishment, the little 
knot of eminent wits and politicians assembled at her 
table; and, above all, with the indescribable grace of 
demeanour and playfulness of mind, with which she 
acted as mistress of its ceremonies. In the evening, 
when we were at length left alone, — by the prolonga- 
tion of those hospitable orgies which were wont, fifty 
years ago, to introduce a reeling Prince into the circle 
of St. James’s, a reeling legislator to the benches of St. 
Stephen’s, and a reeling Cato to the boards of Drury,— 
Isabella stretched herself at full length upon that pon- 
derous sofa on which you were seated this morning; 
and with half-closed eyes proceeded to interrogate me, 
touching my impressions of her and hers. 

“ You find me much changed, dear Sophia, since we 
parted at poor old Galiardin’s ?” — 

“Eucharis expanded into Calypso.” 

“ A very classical illustration; and originating, I sup- 
pose, in my recurrence to the school-room. — By the 
way, let ine caution you, dearest! against appearing 
precious in the eyes of the wicked wits you will meet 
in my set. Let them but affix some malicious epithet 
to your name, and your chances of success in our world 
— ^the world ’ — are over at once and for ever.” 

“ Believe me I am quite unambitious of the distinc- 
tions it is empowered to grant. Success! — you talk as 
of the debut of an actress.” 

“I talk like other reasonable beings; none but idiots 
or philosophers presume to despise the voice of society, 
or hold themselves above the tone of the times. The 
men whose suffrage I forewarn you to propitiate, are 

persons who lead the opinion of our own day, and ” 

“As you please!— I will not dispute this preroga- 
tive,” said I, “ nor am I likely to provoke their animo- 
sity by assuming the tone of the Hotel de Rambouillet. 
The wonderful rumours which reach Devonshire of your 
blue-stocking club, your Mrs. Montagues and Mrs. Ve- 
seys, — your Mrs. Delanys and Mrs. Grevilles, — your 
Miss Talbots and Mrs. Carters, have not inspired me 
with the least curiosity to enter, even as a spectator, 
their bureaux esprit. But you appear tired, dear Lady 
Stratherne; were I not here, you would, perhaps, retire 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


183 


to rest without waiting for the re-appearance of these 
barbarians 

“Rest!” cried Isabella, laughing, “I am lying here 
only to recruit my strength for the vigils of the night. 
At eleven, I go to Lady Delaville’s; and if to-morrow’s 
sun should not still find me at the Pharo-table, it wilt 
do less than any of its predecessors for the last fort- 
night!” 

“ Pharo!” cried I in dismay; “at your age! — I ima- 
gined such diversions belonged to the dowager era of 
Lady Here ward and her c%we.” 

“ Lady who? — the lady of the lapdog? — No, no! the 
genius of a woman of her years and dimensions should 
never extend beyond the sad sobriety of whist. But 
enough of play and players ! I see nothing else all night; 
for the love of charity, let me talk of something else 
during the day. Tell me, Sophy; what do you think 
of Lord Stratherne ?” 

“ I long to disappoint you by acknowledging less than, 
the truth of my admiration; but I must not affect to 
frown on all your predilections. In one word, then, I 
think him the best looking, best mannered, and most 
distinguished man I have seen since my arrival in 
town.” 

“ Which implies, perhaps, that you have left some 
person equally handsome and equally fascinating at the 
other extremity of Dartmoor? Ah ! by your conscious- 
ness I find I have shot home; — right in the bull’s-eye, 
by Cupid and all his arrows ! or a blush never yet spoke 
truth. But I will not ask your confidence, in order 
that some day or other it may come begging for my ac- 
ceptance. 

“ In the mean time, you must rest contented with 
my opinion that Lord Stratherne has quite the air of a 
hero of romance; and that you do wrong in renouncing 
his company for that of Pam or the Red Nine»” 


184 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


CHAPTER ir. 


Chez ella en ses emplois I’aube dn leiideniain 
Souvent la trouve encore les cartes a la main ! 

Alors pour se coucher les quittant, non sans peine, 

Elle plaint le malheur de la nature humaine, 

Q.ui veut en un somineil ou tout s’ensevelit 
Tant d’heures sans jouer se consumer au lit ! 

Boileau. 

From that evening the acquaintance, thus cavalierly 
renewed, was maintained by all the assiduities of fa- 
shionable friendship; at “opera, park, and play,” I 
was the constant companion of the worshipped wife of 
Lord Stratherne. In her private circle I had an op- 
portunity of meeting almost all the eminent men of the 
day. Fox, Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, Walpole, Boothby, 
St. Leger, the young Duke of Ancaster — even the Prince 
himself — delighted to court tlie smiles of one of the 
most fascinating women who ever swayed the sceptre of 
Fashion. 

My father, mean while, absorbed in the duties and 
pleasures of office, forming part of the machinery of the 
state, and accessible to no anxieties but such as could 
be discussed in Council, or were connected with the 
Order of the Day, — was perfectly satisfied to know me 
under the protection of a woman, the name of whose 
lord belonged to the ministerial majority, and who was 
herself especially distinguished by the favour of their 
majesties; and perhaps the contentment with which he 
contemplated my own connexion with Lady Stratherne, 
was not abated by the knowledge that a certain Lord 
Clendennis formed part of her coterie, who was sup- 
posed to regard me with attention. For my own part, 
I thought myself only too fortunate in exchanging the 
hypochondriac and tedious society of Lady Here ward, 
her apothecary and her Phyllis, for that of so cheerful 
and affectionate a companion as Isabella, for the endear- 
ments of her beautiful children, and the courtesies of 
her lord. 

Were I, even now, to specify the most distinguished 
man with whom I ever associated, it would be Lord 
Stratherne, Bred in the school of diplomacy, his nxan- 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


185 


ners were, however, as chilling as they were graceful: 
his smoothness was the smoothness of ice; and he was a 
person to justify the distinction imagined by Talley- 
rand — of being “crewo;” rather than profond.’^ In 
all his thoughts and actions, however he might strive to 
assume an air of frankness, there seemed to lurk some 
arriere pensee; and it was impossible to feel on a confi- 
dential footing with one who evidently bestowed his 
confidence upon no human being. As a public man, 
he had the reputation of ability and integrity; but in 
private life, there was too much of the politician in his 
demeanour to make him an object of cordial regard. To 
me, as the husband of my friend, he was peculiarly 
agreeable, from the undeviating courtesy with which 
he marked the progress of my domestication in her so- 
ciety; but I felt that in the place of Lady Stratherne I 
should have been dissatisfied with the limited terms of 
confidence existing between them. In friendship, in- 
deed, a species of reserve may prevail without exciting 
suspicion, or repelling attachment, for ties must still 
exist superior to its claims; — but, in love, the whole 
heart should be opened; not a dark or mysterious spot 
can be suffered to disguise the heart of either party, 
without producing a corresponding eclipse of the bright- 
ness of affection. In love, it must be all or nothing: 
reserve on a single point creates mistrust in all. 

It was to this want of confidence I was soon tempted 
to attribute the limited influence exercised by Lord 
Stratherne over the character and conduct of Isabella. 
His attractions, both mental and personal, were such 
as might have justified uncompromising devotion on the 
part of a wife; but instead of that absorption in domes- 
tic attachments which generally follows a happy mar- 
riage, she made no secret of her distaste for the mono- 
tony of home, or of the necessity of the excitement of 
flattery and admiration to the maintenance of her 
cheerfulness. Instead of displaying the brilliant ori- 
o-inality of her mind in conversation with a person so 
worthy to appreciate and improve its powers as Stra- 
therne, who would turn the brightness oHier spirit upon 
any trifler who was disposed to sport in its sunshine. 
She had a playful word, a radiant smile, for all who 
courted their dispensation under the banners of fashion; 
she was admired, worshipped, talked of, dreamed of; 

16 ^ 


186 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


— nor did she affect to despise the tribute of all this 
glaring popularity. But as my experience of the world 
increased, and I grew more observant of the habits of 
her celebrated coterie as contrasted with those of socie- 
ty at large, it struck me that I could detect a tone of 
familiarity in the address of her admiring associates, 
such as became neither the eminence of her position as 
the wife of Lord Stratherne, nor the superiority of her 
own endowments. Her set of friends, composed it is 
true of the first characters of the day, appeared to re- 
gard Isabella, her interests, opinions, and feelings, more 
as the property of the community, than as entitled to 
that holy reverence which ought to surround the wife 
of an honourable man, — a matron and the mother of 
children. There was nothing of levity in her conduct 
(as far as it was observable to myself) which justified 
this degradation. When I accompanied her to Rane- 
lagh, or the Opera, — to a ball at the Duchess of Cum- 
berland’s, or at Devonshire House, — Lord Stratherne 
was not only of the party, but in vigilant attendance 
upon Isabella; nay, he even shared with the other men 
of wit and fashion collected around her, the liveliness 
of her repartees and the fascination of her smiles. But 
that he was content to share a treasure so indisputably 
and sacredly his own was, according to my view of his 
character, a mystery. 

Perhaps my consciousness of Isabella’s coquetry and 
disapproval of Stratherne’s tacit concurrence, might be 
somewhat influenced by the devotion by which I con- 
ceived Lord Clendennis to be attached to her car of 
triumph. It is true that during the intervals of her ca- 
pricious favour, he never failed to seek refuge by my^ 
side, and exhibit his discontent in little involuntary 
ebullitions of vexation against the whimsical Isabella. 

“ I cannot understand,” he exclaimed one day, when 
having dined with us, he followed me with his coffee- 
cup in his hand to Lady Stratherne’s boudoir, “what 
tie of friendship is sufficiently strong to connect a per- 
son of your grave studious disposition with our fair 
hostess. ” 

“Are we not told that the strongest affinity exists 
between bodies the most dissimilar?” 

“I asked you for an answer, — not an illustration. 
Tell me, I beseech you, how Lady Sophia Meredyth — 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


187 


whom I see making a daily sacrifice of her time to the 
amusement and instruction of those little girls to whose 
very existence Lady Stratherne appears insensible, who 
passes so many hours in silence and study, who tastes 
even the cup of pleasure with so sparing an appetite, who 
devotes, in short, her blameless life to the fulfilment of 
its duties, — can cherish an affection for a heartless co- 
quette, — a callous mother, and ” 

“Hush, hush!’’ I exclaimed; “I must notallow the 
mortification with which you have been watching Isabel- 
la’s tete-a-tete yonder with Colonel Fitzpatrick, to sti- 
mulate you into the utterance of such treasons! — You have 
drawn a very flattering fancy -picture of Lady Sophia Me- 
redyth; but though she is quite ready to accept all the pic- 
turesque domestic virtues with which you surround her in 
your sketch, there can be no occasion to portray her friend 
environed by attributes as hideous as those of St. Anthony 
in his temptation. Both pictures are exaggerated.” 

“You suffer me, at least, to honour that purity of 
taste which preserves you uninfected by the infatuation 
alluring your friend, night after night, to the precincts 
of the gaming-table.” 

“I have already warned you that I have no ear for 
acrimonious epithets, when applied to Lady Stratherne. 
I now assure you that in this instance you overrate my 
merit. It is not the forbearance of principle which ensures 
my avoidance of play; but an innate dislike to cards, and a 
total distaste for all transactions connected with money.” 

“Well — well! I see it is useless to canonize you in 
spite of yourself. Since you persist in proving yourself 
a sinner, wear your sackcloth and welcome; but for the 
sake of all who love you. Lady Sophia, and all you love, 
do not suffer yourself to be drawn into this vortex of folly 
and dissipation. Our coterie wears a flattering aspect to 
the world; its laugh rings merrily, — its witticisms pass 
into proverbs, — its whims into fashions; — but believe me 
there exists more real vexation of spirit among us, than in 
any similar number of persons ” 

“ Excepting the critics of some popular review — the 
spinsters of some populous pump-room, — or the candi- 
dates for some official vacancy,” cried Lady Stratherne, 
who had approached us unobserved during our dia- 
logue. “Clendennis!— by your guilty looks I am per- 
suaded Sophy has been abusing me, and warning you 


188 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


against the deadly sins of your vocation as my Cheve- 
Her. I trust you have betrayed the abhorrence of her 
treachery by tilting valiantly in my defence?” she con- 
tinued, with an arch smile, proving that she was tolera- 
bly aware of the true state of the case. “ Well, good 
people! I must do you the justice to say you look suffi- 
ciently ashamed of your vile confederacy; and had I not 
unfortunately rendered my character public property, by 
thrusting myself so conspicuously on the stage of society, 
I should tremble to see it in your hands. But basta! 
Sound the alarm for hats and mantles. I have a note 
from his Royal Highness, requesting us to meet him at 
Covent Garden, with St. Leger and Colonel Fitzwilliam, 
to assist in supporting Lady Wallace’s comedy of ‘The 
Ton.’ The carriages are ordered; Sophy, my dear, on 
with your cardinal! Time and tide and the green curtain 
wait for no man.” 

Lady Stratherne was too thoughtless a creature for the 
shadows of suspicion to darken her mind for more than 
one distrustful minute. Leaning on the arm of the Prince 
of Wales, upon whose promising youth the eye of the 
public rested at that period with the most partial alfec- 
tion, — she entered the crowded theatre with the glowing 
flush of gratified vanity bright on her cheek: her eye wan- 
dering from box to box, while her ear hung enraptured on 
the insinuating accents of the most graceful of royal flat- 
terers; and her heart — but who shall venture to penetrate 
the views and wishes and emotions of a female heart, un- 
submitted to the governance of principle? — 

But all this sunshine was evanescent. Isabella’s smiles 
were not those of the genial summer of the soul. Her 
joyous glance would suddenly expire in vacancy, as if 
the happy impulse from whence it sprang had withered. 
A sigh would intrude amid the badinage of her gayest 
narratives , — not of the kind which swells forth from the 
overcharged emotions of a heart at ease, — but harsh, — 
abrupt, — reproachful, — reproachful ! Sometimes Isa- 
bella was heard to check her lovely girls in a tone of 
peevish irritation, in the midst of their childish endear- 
ments; and though she had sufficient command over her- 
self to forbear venting her ill -humour on the stately 
Stratherne, it is probable that she did not love him the 
more for placing this restraint upon her feelings. Yes! 
it was evident that she was unhappy. 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


189 


But what could originate her distress? — Young, beauti- 
ful, prosperous, beloved, no vulgar cares of life could 
reach her favoured career; every blessing, every gift, was 
hers which a doting mother would pray to Heaven to lavish 
upon her child. Yet she was certainly unhappy. The 
season was drawing towards its close; and Lord Stra- 
therne had promised to meet the Spencers and several 
others of Isabella’s noble friends at Spa. It was a pros- 
pect she might have delighted in; for she was partial to 
the unceremonious habits of the continent, and had often 
described to me with fervour the beauties of Eastern 
Flanders, and the reunion of foreign friends which had 
already more than once converted the woods of Luxem- 
bourg into fairy-land under her direction. Yet though she 
succeeded in obtaining my father’s consent that I should be 
of the party, and had preassured herself of my own by 
the flattering picture she presented me of its attractions, 
I plainly discerned that some jarring string completely 
marred the harmony of the project. 

We shall have a charming boating party on the Meuse, 
my dear Sophy! You, who are an enthusiast of the days 
of chivalry, shall visit all the old castles, from the battle- 
mented ruins of Huy, to the scarped rocks of Chouquiers; 
and we will ride through the Ardennes, as if the ancient 
courts of Hainault and Brabant had resuscitated their 
knights and dames for masque of the olden time. Ah! 
gophy — make the most of such enjoyments! Short is 
time, — very short , — too short, — in which the tranquil 
idleness of our hearts and minds, enables us to seek 
amusement from such blameless sources!” 

“ You are not fond of drawing-room philosophy, or I 
would attempt to demonstrate that hearts and minds at 
ease seek no amusement. They accept it when it presents 
itself; but perfect contentment is far too indolent for the 
labour of pleasure.” 

“ Spare me your logical definitions! I scarcely know 
whether I have got a mind, and do not care to make the 
discovery.” 

“ At least you will tell me why Lady Stratherne, the 
veriest butterfly of this painted parterre of London socie- 
ty, affects, at times, the meditative glance of the bird of 
darkness,— or rather the moping ” 

“Metaphors are worse than metaphysics! But if, m 
simple prose, you desire to know why I am occasionally 


190 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


out of spirits, and still more frequently out of temper, 
know that — like the man in the play — I have to 

« Thank the gods that I’m not worth a ducat!” 

cleared out — ruined — beggared — disgraced! — Yes, So- 
phia;— I live in dread of hearing my continental tour up- 
braided as an escape from unpaid debts of honour, and 
clamorous creditors.” 

“ Good heavens ! — Can it be possible that Lord Stra- 
therne 

“ Is as regular and solvent as a chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, buoyed up on the bubble of the national debt ! 
No — no; — Stratherne has nothing to do with my budget 
and its distresses. His agent pays me, to an hour and a 
farthing, my quarterly pittance of five hundred a-year; 
wondering how ‘ my lady’ can manage to expend so pro- 
digious a sum on the purchase of her pins; and little sus- 
pecting that ‘my lady’s’ pins have been unpaid these 



revenue is pledged to her 


play debts for five years come. — Heigho !” 

“ But, my dearest Isabella, — why haye you never men- 
tioned this subject to me before ? I am very rich,” said 
I, blushing with the embarrassment of making a pecuniary 
offer. 

“ Thanks, thanks ! my dear child — but you know no- 
thing of the extent of these miseries; and the twp or three 
fifty pound notes which you hoard in your housewife-case, 
smelling of marechal powder, and looxing as fresh as when 
they were presented to the dear babe by its godmamma on 
its birth-day, would do no more than appease the savage 
demands of the wretch who travels once a-day from the 
Exchange to pester me for the price of yonder old lacquer 
screen. No! dearest Sophy! — keep your treasury un- 
touched for the temptation of a Flander’s head. Valen- 
ciennes, — Lille, — Malines, — Point de Bruxelles ! — think 
of the yards of perdition; and ells of prodigality, which 
will be unfolded before your inexperienced eyes during 
our tour of the Netherlands.” 

“ I am half inclined to be affronted v.^ith your dispa- 
raging view of my finances,” said I, readily detecting her 
intention of distracting my notice from the original sub- 
ject, and the confession which had unawares escaped her, 
V — “but when I told you I was rich, I referred to no birth- 
day tokens of godmotherly love. I have at my absolute 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


191 


disposal five thousand pounds; bequeathed me by a maiden 
aunt whom my father disliked too much even to interfere 
with her legacy. As much of this sum as will cover your 
debts is much at your service.” 

“ Sophia ! what do I hear?” exclaimed Lady Stratherne, 
jumping up from the sofa on which she was extended, and 
seizing me wildly by the hand. “ Do you mean to say 
that you both can and will furnish me with fifteen hun- 
dred pounds?” 

“With the sincerest pleasure; but upon a condition 
that will, I fear, invalidate your pleasure in the loan ” 

“That I cease to play the fool with Clendennis?” 

“No ! Isabella; — upon condition that you cease to play 
the fool with your own happiness and respectability. You 
must promise to renouhce the gaming-table!” 

“ Ahi, ahi, ahi ! — what a ferocious clause in so delight- 
ful a treaty ! Sophy — Sophy ! — know that your gambler, 
like your lover, becomes only the more attached to his 
idol mr the ill usage he receives; and at this very moment, 
when I am pushed by lansquenet into the very jaws of 
ruin, I can scarcely bear the thought of extricating my- 
self at the price of an eternal farewell.” 

“ My dear, dear Lady Stratherne ! — dismiss this child- 
ish self-abandonment on an occasion of so much impor- 
tance. For the sake of a husband and children by whom 
you are tenderly beloved, renounce so ruinous, so humi- 
liating a woakness!” 

“Ay, there’s the rub! — had I indeed a husband by whom 
I was tenderly beloved, T should not have sought refuge 
from the blank vacancy of home, in the excitements of 
play. But I do not wish to involve you in that most wea- 
risome and egotistical of all discussions, the chapter of 
matrimonial grievances. Since business is to be the order 
of the day, let us confine ourselves as religiously to pounds, 
shillings, and pence, as Lord Chester himself on a finance 
committee.” 

“You promise me, then?” 

“Alas, my kind good Sophia, I do!— and did you but 
know, in sober sadness, the mortification and wretched- 
ness— the restless nights and anxious days which my em- 
barrassments have obliged me to pass, you vvould marvel 
at my having hesitated for the most impossible fraction of 
a minute. Here is my hand upon the bargain.” 

“And mine ! But you must still endure the delay of 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


192 

a few days. I do not keep my aunt Margaret’s legacy in 
the housewife-case scented with marechal powder; but by 
return of communication from my Exeter banker, the fif- 
teen hundred pounds shall be yours.” 

“ I have accepted the generous offer too precipitately,” 
said Isabella, after musing fora few minutes. “I have 
but five hundred a-year; and after limiting myself to the 
strictest necessaries, I should require four years to dis- 
charge the debt. In the mean time, you will marry — 

“ And if I do, you shall satisfy your scruples by paying 
me interest upon this enormous obligation. Till then, — 
and believe me, Isabella, I have no intention of accele- 
rating the epoch, — my father’s extreme liberality places 
me above all reference to my banker’s book at Exeter.” 

I was almost shocked by the inconsiderate gaiety dis- 
played by Lady Stratherne in the course of that evening. 
Released from the immediate pressure of her difficulties, 
her spirits rose to the most extravagant height. An un- 
natural brilliancy streamed from her eyes; her steps ap- 
peared unconscious of the earth; and her sallies excited a 
correspondent spirit of mirth in our little society. There 
was a masquerade at the Pantheon, previously to which 
masks were to be received at the Duchess of Gordon’s; — ^ 
and as she advanced into the throng upon the arm of the 
youthful Duke of Ancaster, the most distinguished-look- 
ing man of the assembly, I heard her pointed out by a hun- 
dred different voices — “There goes the beautiful Lady 
Stratherne, — the wittiest and loveliest woman in Eng- 
land, — the happiest, — the most beloved. Who — who— * 
would not be Lady Stratherne?” 


CHAPTER III. 

Les niffiurs des gens du monde, sans passion, sans autre occupation que celle 
de s’amuser, et d’autant, plus difficiles a peindre d’une maniere inter^ssaiite 

qu’elles sont en elles-memes sans couleur, et assez insipides. Grimm. ’ 

Spa was a very charming place in those days. The 
world was not so easily shamed out of the enjoyment of 
simple pleasures as in our own fastidious times. We were 
roused in the morning by the serenades of the Odenwald 
glee-singers; then, hurrying through our toilet, were re* 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


103 


celved at the springs by a group of flower-women, the ce- 
lebrated houquetieres of Tirlemont; — performed our pil- 
grimage to the Geronstere spring, on a herd of shaggy 
ponies of the Ardennes, enlisted by Lord Clendennis for 
our use; dined early that we might enjoy a lounge in the 
Promenade de sept hemes, previously to adjourning to the 
Pedoute for the evening: and (unless when a formal fete 
priee was given by one of the Prussian princes, or the 
Archduchess Christina, who occasionally inhabited her 
beautiful villa at the entrance of the valley, the formali- 
ties of full-dress were banished. Our party, which con- 
sisted of several English families of our own circle, be- 
sides those of the Prince de Montfaucon, the Due de 
Luxembourg, and the Marechal de la Roche-Aymon, en- 
joyed all the cheerful ease of the most private coterie, 
combined with the brilliancy and spirit of a fashionable 
watering-place. 

The Redoute, a temple of pleasure uniting the saloons 
devoted to dancing, music, and gambling, with the public 
theatre, was frequented as a daily promenade by visiters 
of every degree; nor were our English beauties of that pe- 
riod too exclusive to mix in the throng, and hazard their 
louis-d’ors alternately against those of a reigning prince 
and a chevalier d’industrie. On our first arrival, I own 
I dreaded the temptation thus afforded to my friend; but 
an ordonnance had recently been issued by the Prince 
Bishop of Liege, placing heavy restrictions on the gaming- 
tables, and, for heV own part, she evinced little interest 
in their proceedings. Sauntering through the saloon on 

the arm of Sir Charles G , Lord Frederick C , 

Lord Clendennis, or some other gentleman of our party, 
and having overlooked the tables for a minute or two en 
passant, she \vou\d occasionally indulge in a trifling bet 
at the persuasion of her companions, then playfully insist 
on flying from the unhallowed region. Evening after eve- 
ning she quitted the Pharo-table to listen to one of Gluck’s 
operas, screeched in the adjoining theatre by the Belgic 
corps operatiqae, (which was patriotically patronized by 
the Imperial Governess of the Netherlands, and trans- 
ported from Brussels to excoriate the ears of the invalids 
La Geronstere,) or to music of a still higher order, in the 
wit of Hare, and the philosophy of Burke. It was, indeed, 
gratifying to my feelings to observe the victory thus ob- 
tained over her injurious propensities. 

VoL. II. 17 


194 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


Mean while, notwithstanding the admirable organiza-' 
tion of our little party, there were two members whose 
absence would have been an improvement according ta 
wy estimate of their attractions. These -were the Prin- 
cesse de Montfaucon, and the young Comte dTsenbourg, 
the head of a family of great antiquity in the Palatinate^ — 
the former of whom I disliked, no less from the insolent 
assumption of her manners, than because I plainly dis- 
cerned her to be the enemy of Lady Stratherne; while the 
latter was still more unwelcome as a strenuous suitor ta 
myself. But my prejudices against both were very soon 
eclipsed by the unspeakable disgust which possessed my 
mind on the arrival of a certain Prince Ernest of Ritters- 
feld, also a subject of Charles Theodore, but for some 
time past a diplomatic resident at the court of France. 
There w'as something in the effeminate regularity of this 
man’s beauty and the refined affectation of his manners, 
which afforded a revolting contrast to the vices of which 
he boasted, and the defiance of all principle and good- 
feeling apparent in the brilliant sallies by which he drew 
forth the applause of the fashionables of Spa. It was not 
surprising that the ami de cceur of the Chevalier de Bouf- 
flers should be a clever epigrammatist, — that the associ- 
ate and scholar of Marmontel, of Mesdames d’Epinay, 
d’Houdelot, Geoffrin — of Grimm, Holbach, and Helve- 
tius, should shine in the graceful pleasantries which dis- 
tinguished our little circle: but it was indeed amazing 
that the fairest and sweetest of its ornaments should lis- 
ten with an approving smile to the profligate axioms fall- 
ing from lips that afforded a model for the- countenance of 
an archangel; or that the feats of bold depravity attri- 
buted, to this “easy Etherege ” of the circles of the Choi- 
seuls and Grammonts, w^ere rehearsed by those who should 
have trembled aT the recital. Prince Ernest was without 
exception the handsomest man I ever beheld, and the least 
prepossessing. 

Such, however, was not the opinion of Lady Stratherne. 
She had become intimately acquainted with him in her 
frequent visits to Paris; and no sooner was he installed 
in Ids apartments in our hotel, than Lord Clendennis 
and the rest of our English beaux were tacitly dismissed 
from their attendance. It was on Prince Ernest’s arm 
that she clambered up the rude ascents of the woods of 
Montjou on occasion of a pic-nic given by Prince Albert 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


195 


of Saxe Teschen, and explored the marble quarries of 
Theux. It was Prince Ernest who guided her horse 
through the dikes, and over the stone fences which inter- 
rupted the road on our expedition to the cascade at Coo, 
and the heights of SteiFen. Prince Ernest opened thS 
public ball vvith her, given on the departure of the Arch- 
duchess; Prince Ernest sang duets with her at the Due 
de Monthemar’s illuminated supper at the Waux Hall. 

But from the period of this excessive intimacy the so- 
ciability of our party declined. In their own defence 
others began a system of preference; till at length, the 
seven-and-thirty individuals of which the coterie was 
composed, broke into little parties of twos and threes, — 
but alas! more of the former than the latter. Lady Stra- 
therne’s unadvised engouement for Rittersfeld, seemed to 
have given a signal for the general disunion and particular 
union of our party. For a few days succeeding the change 
of affairs, I fancied that Lord Clendennis was more assi- 
duous than usual in his attentions to myself. But the 
flattering illusion soon vanished. He resumed the sort of 
froward petulance with which, for some time past, he had 
taken the liberty of demeaning himself when we were 
thrown together by the chances of society; and I was 
left to the homage and escort of Comte Isenbourg, whom 
I liked too well as an acquaintance not to detest as a 
lover. His conversation was amusing, — but I could not 
listen and applaud without encouraging pretensions I was 
by no means inclined to sanction; and finding myself, by 
the common consent of the party, appropriated to him as 
a partner and associate, I was constantly obliged to se- 
cure the courtesies of the old Prince de Montfaucon, or 
any other man to whom I could address myself without 
incurring the charge of coquetry. 

I have forgotten all this time to tell you, — what the 
course of my narrative may have implied, — that Lord 
Stratherne was not of the expedition to Spa. The session 
of Parliament not having terminated when we quitted 
England, towards the close of May, he promised to be 
with us soon after the birthday; then excused himself on 
the plea of a visit to Windsor; and again and again, a pe- 
riod was fixed for his arrival, and as often postponed. 
Long before the installation of the Prince of Rittersfeld 
as chevalier cVhonneur to Lady Stratherne, it was plain 
tp me that she had renounced all expectation, and that 


196 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


her lord had never entertained any intention of making 
his appearance. I was provoked by his prolonged ab- 
sencej I certainly should not have quitted England in 
company with my giddy friend, had I not been led to an- 
ticipate the protection of her husband. But it was now 
too late to repent my precipitancy. 

Et ce cher mari qii*on annonce toiijours, et qui n’ar- 
rive jamais/^’ said the Princesse de Montfaucon one night 
when I had interrupted her tete-a-tete with Count d’Oul- 
tremont, by attaching myself to her side in order to es- 
cape the importunities of Isenbourg. “ What news of 
Milord by to-day’s post? Is he still on the eve of em- 
barkation? — Or has Great Britain again suffered a relapse, 
so that his valuable services cannot be spared from the 
consultation of her physicians?” 

“My father, Lord Chester, writes me word,” said I, 
indignantly, “ that Lord Stratherne’s presence cannot 
just now be dispensed with. In England it is not the 
custom for the functions of a minister of state to give 
way to the claims of a party of pleasure. We are told 
they manage such things better in France.” 

“ They manage nothing better in France, ma belle en- 
fant,^’ cried the Princess, in a tone of contempt. 
fait de chicane^ whether of the cabinet or the ball-room, 
an affaire de cceur, or an affair of honour, — I will back 
the simple gohemouches of the Thames for a good score 
or two of Brabant crowns, against all Europe and half 
Asia. There is no art so artificial as that which arrays 
itself in the garb of nature^ and the unsophistication of 
your true John Bull, resembles that of the expert knave 
who assumes a fustian jacket and patois to enable him to 
pick ypur pocket. Don’t look affronted 1 — France too has 
her Cartouches and Mandrins; but they pursue their vo- 
cation in lace and embroidery.” 

“But we were talking of ministers of state,” said 
Count d’Oultremont, — a matter of-fact Fleming, who, 
while he worshipped the beauty of Madame de Montfau- 
con, was altogether below the proof of her Parisian 
raillery. 

“ cga/.'” said the incorrigible Princess. “The 

assumed honhommie which seals the eyes of a nation, or 
the eyes of a wife, is but the same cunning simplicity.” 

“ i would double the w'ager just offered by Madame la 
Comtesse,” said Isenbourg, amazed by her uncourteous 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


197 

virulence, “to discover through what quarter she has 
been piqued into this animosity. I am trying to remem- 
ber the names of all the lovely Englishwomen, all the fine, 
frank, bluff young Englishmen I meet at Paris, to ascer- 
tain which can be the recreant knight, which the fatal ri- 
val, who has excited the Princess of Montfaucon into so 
vehement an Anglophobia. 

“You will soon have occasion to refresh your memory. 
I conclude you accompany Miladi Sophie et Madame de 
Straterne to Paris?” 

“Pardon me, madams we have no thoughts of visiting 
Paris,” said I, coldly. 

“ We ! — Am I at liberty to guess who, which, or what, 
constitutes your first person plural? — Young ladies, I am 
aware, are not allowed to affect a first person singular: 
and unless your thoughts incline you to remain at Spa with 
Monsieur d’Isenbourg, while Prince Ernest and Miladi 
Straterne perform their pilgrimage to Sainte Genevieve, I 
fancy the ‘ we ’ must be retracted, and my original decla- 
ration confirmed.” 

“ Has Lady Stratherne. any intention of returning to 
England by way of Paris?” inquired Lord Clendennis, 
laying down the Mercure, which had hitherto appeared to 
engross his attention. 

“None, I assure you,” said I. “ We are even pledged 
to visit the Archduchess on our way through Brussels; 
and have engaged the Tyroliers to attend us on the Meuse, 
from Liege to Namur.” 

“More English simplicity!” cried the Princess, lifting 
her hands in affected astonishment. “Monsieur d’Isen- 
bourg, tell me, 1 beseech you, like an honest man and a 
preux chevalier, does not the party of Miladi quit us for 
Baden next week ? And have you not promised to give 
them a Ritterspiel on their road, in your castle in the 
Rheingau?” 

To my surprise, the Count bowed affirmatively; and 
Lord Clendennis instantly took up the Mercure, and pur- 
sued his studies. 

“ Qui de nous done est le dupe 
Tout le monde est du secret!” 

cried Madame de Montfaucon, in the words of an author 
then in the zenith of his Parisian popularity. 


ir* 


198 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


“Lady Stratherne must explain all this!” I exclaimed^ 
rising to go in search of her. , « 

“Bah, bah!— -your lovely friend detests explanations, 
cried the Princess, provokingly. “ And why need you 
know any thing about it? If you do not follow up my 
officious hint, you may very easily contrive to mistake 
Aix for Liege, — ^Ehrenbreitstein for Huy,-— Mayence for 
Namur. Your simplicity may even imagine, when you 
enter the portal of Castle Isenbourg, that you are on a vi- 
sit to Madame la Gouvernante Imperiale.” 

I forbore to reply to these taunts, lest I should gratify 
my tormentor with the evidence of my secret vexation. 
It was provoking enough that Lord Clendennis should 
sit there listening to so distorted a representation of facts, 
and by his nonchalance compel me to accept the services 
of the Count in seeking Lady Stratherne. 

“Is it possible,” whispered Isenbourg, with the most 
tender emphasis, the moment we were out of hearing of 
the others, “ that you have been kept in ignorance of the 
honour intended me by your English friends?” 

“ Is it possible that you can doubt it?” I replied, with 
as much hauteur as I could assume. 

“And yet, in forming my plans for your reception at 
Isenbourg, I was taught, madam, to believe that I should 
not have a reluctant guest in the Lady Sophia Meredyth.” 

“On that point,” said I, “you must explain yourself 
with those who have thought proper to deceive you. But 
be assured I have not found the attractions of my sojourn 
at Spa sufficiently great, to induce me to prolong my stay 
on the continent.” 

“I am answered, madam,” replied Count Isenbourg, in 
a tone of mortification. “ And yet, it is hard that your 
disgusts against myself, your unwillingness to honour my 
residence with your presence, should deprive you of a 
pleasure, of which some days ago I heard you speak with 
interest. Lady Stratherne assures me that one of her 
chief inducements to visit Paris is to gratify your wish of 
being present at the state audience about to be accorded 
at Versailles to the Indian Ambassador.” 

“I may have expressed a desire to witness such a pa- 
geant; but merely as a child proclaims its eagerness for a 
new toy. Lady Stratherne can scarcely have formed her 
projects on so slight a temptation.” 

We were now in the corridor leading from the news- 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


199 


room of the redoute to the grand saloon, in which I ex- 
pected to find my chaperon. It was evening — entre chien 
et loup^ as Madame de Montfaucon.would have called it — 
and the passages were not yet lighted up. But I had no 
difficulty in perceiving that the female figure, which now 
rushed out of a side-door into the vestibule, was that of 
Lady Stratherne; or that she was closely followed by 
Prince Ernest, who seemed to be remonstrating with her, 
and imploring her return. I instantly called to her by 
name, and expressed my wish to go home. 

“It is scarcely nine o’clock,” said Prince Ernest. 
“The carriage is not come.” 

“Let us walk,” said I. “ We had but a short ride 
this morning; Lady Stratherne cannot be fatigued.” 

“Yes, yes! let us walk home,” cried my friend. “I 
am not tired, — the air will refresh me.” And, as she 
spoke, I was amazed to perceive that her voice was broken 
with sobs. Without having the slightest clew to the cause 
of her distress, I saw that this was no moment for my in- 
tended explanation; but Count Isenbourg had either less 
tact or less forbearance; and scarcely had we quitted the 
portico, w'hen, perceiving that I chose to remain by the 
side of our companions instead of following them in a 
tete-a-tete, he suddenly exclaimed, — 

“ I have to regret that the hopes I was induced to form 
of seeing your ladyship and Lady Sophia Meredythat Isen- 
bourg, were so presumptuously groundless. — I find ” 

“Bah!” interrupted Prince Ernest, with an affected 
tone of gaiety; “Isenbourg, my best of fellows! — one 
would imagine that you, and not I, had been apprenticed 
to the diplomatic craft. You wrap your smallest mean- 
ing in so many courteous words, that methinks Monsieur 
de Vergennes would do well to appoint you master of the 
ceremonies to this barbaric envoy, who has come from the 
east to kiss the sublime dust on the feet of the grand 
narque. As I am a Christian man, I would ride straight 
from the Pouhon to my entresol in the Rue St. Honor6, 
on the cart-horse my friend d’Oultremont calls his Ara- 
bian, for the satisfaction of seeing you salaming and cou- 
ghing your way through the Salle de Mars, with a white 
wand in your hand, like that of a chambellan d^opera.'^’ 

The Prince was evidently gaining time for Lady Stra- 
therne to recover her self-possession; but Isenbourg was 
not to be diverted from his object 


200 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


“As you will shortly have the good fortune to witness 
that ceremony as the escort of Lady Stratherne, and ” 
t<No no — no!” interrupted Isabella; “I have re- 

nounced all intention of visiting Paris.” 

“Your ladyship will permit me to remind you,’ ob- 
served Isenbourg, in a tone of deep mortification, ‘^that 
on the temptation of your promised visit, a large party of 
our mutual friends is on the point of assembling at my 
house; and the disappointment of my mother, who has ob- 
tained leave of absence from the Electress from her func- 
tions as grande maitresse, in the hope of forming the ac- 
quaintance of persons so interesting to my feelings ” (he 
inclined his head towards me as he spoke,) “will be, if 
possible, greater than my own.” . 

“lam quite aware. Monsieur le Comte, that I owe you 
many apologies for my seeming caprice,” said Isabella, 
somewhat more composedly; “but believe me the change 
of our plans is inevitable.” 

“ Do not say our plans, Isabella, lest you should induce 
the Count to believe me a party in those schemes, which 
still remain as mysterious as they are unsatisfactory.” 

“ Bieu! que ces jeunes tetes sont difficiles a mener!'^ 
cried Prince Ernest. “ Here is Isenbourg ready to throw 
us all into the Meuse, because we cannot go and admire 
the creneaux of his state prison; while Mademoiselle de 
Meredit is ready to shoot us flying for having even dreamed 
of such a diversion.” 

“ Decidedly, then, you do not go to Baden?” inquired 
the Count of Lady Stratherne, in a grave tone. 

“ I regret to say that the letters which reached me by 
to-day’s courier compel my immediate return to Lon- 
don,” faltered Isabella; a declaration which surprised me 
the more, as I knew no courier had arrived. 

“And youp — ” persisted Isenbourg, turning to Ritters- 
field. 

“I? — what am I to the purpose? — Surely, my vene- 
rated friend Countess Isenbourg, does not leave Stutgardt 
for the purpose of doing the honours of the chateau to mep^^ 
“ Certainly not; — my mother knows you so well — so 
thoroughly,’* cried the Count, with a sneer. “But as we 

agreed to travel from Baden back to Paris together, I ” 

“ Cannot do better than look out for another compag- 
non de voyage. My letters, also, compel my immediate 
departure for London.” 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


201 


“Indeed!” exclaimed Isenbourg, startled by this avow- 
al, while I perceived, by the tremour of Isabella’s frame, 
that she was equally unprepared for the declaration. 
“You — you — go to England; you visit London!” she 
murmured, as if from an irresistible impulse. 

“I-— I go to England, replied Rittersfield, in the most 
decided tone. “ And why not ? — I am scarcely worth two 
hundred louis in the w^orld. In Paris they would be the 
property of my creditors; in London they will keep me 
alive fora few months.” 

“ This is the first time I ever heard you express any 
anxiety on the score of your finances,” observed Isen- 
bourg, as we approached the gatevvay of our hotel. 

“ Que voulez vousp^’ cried Prince Ernest, affecting a 
tone of levity evidently at variance with the state of his 
mind, while he hummed a stanza from one of Champce- 
net’s popular Noels. 

“ De Louvois suivant les legons, 

J'ai fait des chansons et des dettes; 

Les premieres sont sans fagons.- 
Mais les secondes sont bien faites, 

C’est pour 6chapper a I'ennui 
Q,u’un honnete homme se derange — 

Q,uel bien est solide aujoiird’hui? 

Le plus sur est celui qu’on mange,” 


CHAPTER IV. 

Screening, with trembling, from her fellow men 

Crimes offered fearless to the Almighty’s ken. Crabbk. 

Eager as I was for an interview with Isabella, I trem^ 
bled when, on following her into her dressing-room, I ob- 
tained a view’ of her countenance. It was actually livid 
with horror! — no tears, no exclamations, not a word in 
explanation of the mysteries of the evening. She threw 
herself into a chair, with her eyes fixed and her hands 
clasped, as if unconscious of my presence. 

After allowing her some minutes to regain her compo- 
sure, I whispered an inquiry whether I should ring for 
her maid; whether I could afford her any assistance. At 
first Lady Stratherne made no answer; but on my reite- 
rating the question, she pointed to her dressing-case as 


^02 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


if she wished me to bring it her, — although the gold toilet- 
set it served to contain was as usual laid out on her dress- 
ing-table. Scarcely had I obeyed the signal, when she 
snatched a key from her bosom, and opening the little 
chest, was about to swallow the -contents of a phial which 
she took from a secret drawer. 

“ What are you about to do, Isabella?” said I, forcibly 
detaining her hand. 

“ Not to poison myself, Sophy, — not to poison myself!” 
she exclaimed, suddenly giving way to a frantic burst of 
laughter. “ Don’t be alarmed, child; be under no appre- 
hension of hearing of an ‘ awful catastrophe in high life,’ 
bruited to the world by the clamour of the English news- 
papers. This is but my daily portion or potion of opium; 
tired nature’s boon restorer, balmy opium! — Cervantes 
was wrong to make Sancho Panza bless the man who 
first invented sleep; he should have inspired the clown 
with veneration for him who first discovered the use of 
anodynes. ” 

Again she put the phial to her lips, and again I im- 
plored her to forbear. “ Isabella,” said I, “you are not 
the less guilty, that the poison to which you have recourse 
is slow as well as sure. You have long complained of 
the state of your health, — ” 

“No, no; not the state of my health — I never com- 
plained of my health!” cried she, passing her hand dis- 
tractedly over her forehead. 

“Your looks complain, — ^your countenance accuses 
you. — In London, late hours and hot rooms afford a plea 
for the languor by which I have seen you oppressed. But 
here, Isabella, here — where we retire to rest at so reason- 
able a time; here where daily exercise and pure air have 
restored us all to strength and health; I can attribute the 
haggardness of your looks only to sickness, or sorrow, or 
the norrible means of excitement you have just boasted as 
your refuge against both.” 

I was talking to the winds! — the mind of Lady Stra- 
therne was absorbed by perplexities of its own. 

“ Sophy, what money have you about you?” she sud- 
denly exclaimed. 

“ None — I never carry my purse to the Redoute.” 

“No, no! I mean here at Spa. What have you left 
—what—” 

“I have about eighty louis at your service,” said I, 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


203 


anticipating the request I now foresaw, “The remainder 
of my store is bespoken to pay for a few Spa boxes and 
toys I have ordered as commissions from Lady Here- 
ward.” 

“You must leave Lady Hereward’s commissions to 
take care of themselves,” was her peremptory reply. 
** Yes, you must! — and give me all , — to your last louis, 
your last florin! — And now tell me, are you prepared to 
quit Spa at a moment’s warning? — Do you think that by 
sitting up to-night, our baggage could be packed to ena- 
ble us to be off* by daybreak? — My preparations would be 
easily made. — Oh! ii I could but get away before he is 
aware of my intentions; — if I could, if I could but escape 
him!” 

“ Escape whom, my dear Isabella?” 

“ Rittersfield ! Hush! — don’t ask me why! — don’t re- 
monstrate with me. I forestall all your inquiries. I shall 
not utter one word of truth in reply to your questions. 
Only tell me how I can manage to get my affairs here ar- 
ranged; only assist me in leaving this horrible place!” 

“ Surely so abrupt a departure will provoke a thousand 
injurious suspicions?” 

“True; but evil report is not the thing I have most to 
fear.” 

“The delay of twenty-four hours cannot surely be pro- 
j ductive of much mischief?” 

“ Why not say in two words that you will not quit 
Spa without an interview with Clendennis?” cried Isa- 
bella. 

“ You are ungenerous or distracted enough at this mo- 
ment, to accuse me of any act of selfishness. On consi- 
, deration, you will admit that I am ready, willing, eager, 

I to do any thing that may contribute to your advantage. 
!' But, at present, I see none in this precipitate flight.” 

Lady Stratherne shook her head. “I can plainly dis- 
cern,” said she, “ that it is Rittersfield’s intention to mo- 
lest me by his company in the journey. Our friends are 
yet unprepared to return; and how can I resist his right 
to travel the same road on the same day with myself!” 

“But you can avoid all intercourse with him. Your 
own dignity will enable you to ” 

“ Pshaw! — dignity! — dignity against the boldness of a 
rowe like Prince Ernest!” 

“ You must have admitted his encroachments very tame- 


S04 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


ly,” I involuntarily exclaimed, “to have become thus sub- 
missive to his power.” 

“You must not measure our position,” said Isabella, 
evading a direct reply, “by your experience of the forms 
of English society. “ Sophy! you do not know that man; 
— you do not know the school of profligacy in which he 
has been trained; — you do not know the callous sternness 
of ” 

‘‘Sternness?” cried I; “Prince Ernest, stern! He, 
whose every word is a jest, — every glance a smile?’" 

“Heaven, my poor Sophia, defend you from such 
mirth! Well do I remember that when I first visited 
Paris, I saw things, and heard them, in the manner you 
hear and see them now. The poor Duchess of Kingston, 
my aunt, (herself only too fatally versed in the deceptions 
and depravities of life) at that very time pointed out 
to my avoidance Prince Ernest and his community of 
Lauzuns and Richelieus. ‘ Light and gallant as they ap- 
pear, said she, ‘ there breathe no darker villains; — like 
the tyrants of old, they conceal their iron armour under 
velvet and embroidery.’ But why waste these precious 
hours in idle discussion; — let us commence our prepa- 
rations.” 

At length, however, I persuaded her to compromise 
her impatience by devoting a whole day to the private 
fartherance of her plans, — -her departure being formallv 
announced for the end of the week. A charge of secre- 
cy was given to her astonished servants; and without 
comprehending the cause of her perturbation or the aim of 
her concealments, I proceeded in my own arrangements 
for our departure. It was agreed between us that not a 
hint of our purpose should be given to any living soul; 
and that she should leave a letter for Lady E. F., who 
was her most intimate friend, explaining that she had 
played the runaway in order to evade the disagreeable ce- 
remony of a general adieu. We were to set off before 
day-break on the following morning. Lord Stratherne 
having wisely intrusted the arrangement and defrayment 
of his wife’s household expenditure to his maitre d’hotel, 
who, with her suite, was to follow in the course of the 
day; and since it was her whim and pleasure to insist on 
this mysterious mode of departure, I was satisfied that no 
obstacle would now present itself. 

It happened, unluckily, that a party of pleasure had 


Hearts and diamonds. 


205 


long been arranged to take place that morning in the 
ruins of the old Castle of Franchimont; a fete given by 
the Prince of Bentheim, who had+ summoned his band of 
wind instruments from his castle near Munster, solely to 
gratify a whim expressed by Lady^Stratherne; nor could 
we absent ourselves without exciting the surmises of our 
friends. This was a sad trial of my presence of mind. 
Youth is a poor dissembler; and I was too much annoyed 
at quitting Spa on terms of such vexatious misunderstand- 
ing with Lord Clendennis, to assume an air of cheerful- 
ness. Lady Stratherne,-on the contrary, habituated to 
the task of deception, was not at all discomposed by the 
effort; and whatever might have been the source of her 
emotion on the preceding evening, all was subdued, — all 
past, — all seemingly forgotten on the morrow. She en- 
I tercd the ruined portal of Franchimont with a smile as ra- 
diant, and a costume as carefully adjusted, as if no ulte- 
rior project occupied her mind. 

The scene fhat presented itself within was, indeed, pic- 
turesque! The Prince of Bentheim, one of the most 
; magnificent of thu Lilliputian potentates of the Empire, 

I had been at the trouble and expense of arraying a compa- 
' ny of his people in the ancient costume of Germany, and 
of fitting up the interior of tlic court-yard with galleries, 

I as for a tilt of the olden time. Banners waving above 
i the various balconies, bore the emblazonments of the 
I most renowned houses of the Rhenish and Flemish Rit- 
terey; and I perceived with regret, that Isabella and 
myself were appointed to preside in one embellished with 
I the bearings of Isenbourg. The centre of the arena 
having been temporarily floored with fine turf, the amuse- 
I raents of the day commenced with a wrestling match af- 
! ter the ancient Walloon custom, exhibited by a company 
of Liegeois, who had precisely the air of having stepped 
from one of Durer’s pictures. This was followed by 
games of quarter- staff, and shooting at the popinjay, inter- 
spersed with the exquisite performances of the Prince’s 
! band, clad in the feudal liveries of his house. 

It was a lovely day in July; but so deep was the shade 
cast by the massive w-alls, that a delicious coolness per- 
vaded the scene. The temporary galleries were covered 
, in with a matting of fresh broom, of which the blossoms 
still “smelt wooingly;” while the tapestry of rich wall- 
flowers partially covering the hoary and decaying battle- 
VoL. II. 18 


206 


ft E ARTS AND DIAMONDS, 


ments, more than rivalled their fragrance. The clear 
blue summer sky was over our heads, — the sound of mu- 
sic on the air, — and smiling faces around us^ — tents ap- 
propriated to the banquet were erected round the glacis, 
and supplied with the most luxurious profusion: — the 
whole pageant wore an air of enchantment. Princess 
Cuneguncia of Saxony, the Princes of Prussia, and the 
Elector of Cologne, occupied the central gallery, bearing 
the escutcheon and Imperial crown of Charlemagnej the 
rest of the tier was filled with visiters of the highest note^ 
collected from Spa, Aix la Chapelle, and the environs. 
Scarcely were we seated in the prominent places pointed 
out for us by the Prince of Bentheim, when Madame de 
Montfaucon, leaning over from the adjoining balc6ny, be- 
gan to criticise, in an audible tone, the arrangements of 
the day; pointing out with contempt the wives of certain 
of the wealthy burghers of DUsseldorf and Cologne, who 
had been admitted to the entertainment. 

“ Qut voulez vousp” replied Isabella. “ Every large 
assembly ensures plebeian contact. Lordly and lowly, — 
gentle and simple, — English and French,— and all other 
rival parties and persons, who detest each other by right 
(or wrong) divine, — must be collected together to people 
such a spot as the ruins of Franchimont. In society, no 
less than in commercial traffic, silver and copper coin 
becomes as indispensable as the golden lotiis 

Provoked by this ready retort, the Princess turned to- 
wards me, whom she knew by experience to be more vul- 
nerable to her irony, imploring me to inform her of the 
cause of Count Isenbourg’s sudden departure. “ Is he 
gone,” she inquired, “ to perfect his preparations for your 
ladyship’s reception; or had he not courage to see his own 
entertainment eclipsed by a liberality which would have 
exhausted the Isenbourg revenues for a twelvemonth to 
come?” 

Although secretly exulting in the discovery that the 
last day of my unquiet sojourn at Spa was secure from 
the additional annoyance of his presence, I would not al- 
low Madame de Montfaucon an unqualified triumph; but 
warmly taking up the defence of poor Isenbourg, exhibit- 
ed a degree of ardour in his behalf, such as brought the 
colour into my own cheeks when, turning suddenly to 
Isabella, I perceived that Lord Clendennis had stationed 
himself between us, and that both were intently regard- 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


207 


ing; me. The music striking up at that moment, put an 
end to my embarrassment; and scarcely had it ceased, 
when Clendennis was again discoursing in a low voice 
with Lady Stratherne, whose hurried answers and air of 
Vexation convinced me that her old friend was assuming 
a tone either of remonstrance or reproof. Their conver- 
sation was interrupted only when Prince Ernest of Rit- 
tersfield, (who with olie or two German cavaliers of the 
Rittereyy had taken t:heir turn among the cross-bowmen) 
entered the gallery, and took his station, as if by privi- 
lege of place, by the side of Isabella. I saw her change 
colour on his approach, — I saw her shudder when he ac- 
costed her, — 1 saw in the expression of his fine face the 
exulting sneer of a demon, — and heard in every inflection 
of his voice the tone of one wholoves and hates, who is 
at once triumphant and mortified. Deeply grieved to 
behold the friend of my youth (lebascd by some yet unex- 
plained error or folly into the endurance of all this inso- 
lence, it was, indeed, a moment of release to me when 
the trumpeters, parading the lists, summoned us to the 
banquet. But Prince Ernest so instantaneously pos- 
sessed himself of Isabella’s arm, that Lord Clendennis 
could not without rudeness avoid tendering his own to 
mj acceptance. 


.CHAPTER V. 


Such a man is Claudio! He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, 
like an honest man and a soldier ; and now is he turned orthographer. 

Shaespeare. 

Already dispirited by the belief that nothing could be 
more unacceptable than the office thus imposed on his 
gallantry, I lost all enjoyment of his society on per- 
ceiving Madame de Montfaucon stationed opposite to us 
during the banquet, with her inquisition too manifestly on 
the alert to admit of any conversation with Clendennis 
beyond common topics and the news of the day. 

But scarcely was the tedious collation at an end, when 
he whispered a proposal that we should follow the exam- 
ple of two or three straggling parties, which, instead of 
returning to the galleries, or to the arena which was now 
prepared for dancing, dispersed themselves among the 


208 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


footpaths that intersect the cnpses of underwood, sloping^ 
from the lofty ridge on which the Castle of Franchimont 
is situated towards the valley below. As we took our 
way through thickets of hazel and maple, overgrown with 
honeysuckles and brier roses, reminding me strongly of 
the banks of the Dart, I experienced the first moments 
of real gratification that had embellished my visit at Spa. 
Still, however, Clendennis was silent, — still embarrassed f 
and it seemed a prodigious effort over his own feelings, 
which at length enabled him to address me. 

“You will, perhaps, consider me bold. Lady Sophia, 
said he, “ and certainly officious, in presuming to trouble 
you with my observations. But though you have been 
tempted to withdraw your interest from your native 
country, and fix it in another land, — another race — ” 

I would have given worlds to interrupt him and excuL 

{ )ate myself from such a charge; but as he did not explicit- 
y mention the name of Count Isenbourg, I feared my 
ready application of his hint might be liable to misinter- 
pretation. 

“ Still,” he continued, “I cannot suppose that the hap- 
piness, the respectability, the reputation of Lady Stra- 
therne, have already become indifferent to your feelings. 
I choose to believe that, however you may despise the 
counsel of the friends who love and the acquaintances 
who admire you, you still cherish some degree of affection 
towards your early companion, — towards the ill-fated be- 
ing whom even that protecting affection will scarcely pre- 
serve from destruction.” 

“ You alarm me!” I exclaimed, no longer intent on ray 
owm vindication, — no longer dwelling on any of his insi- 
nuations, save that which regarded Isabella. “ You alarm 
me beyond description.” 

“I wish to do so!” was his stern reply. “ Had I ven- 
tured to speak so explicitly on my arrival here, much mis- 
chief might have been spared. But tell me, madam, — if 
indeed I may presume to ask, — tell me whether I under- 
stood rightly in your explanation at the dinner-table with 
the Princesse de Montfaucon, that your friend has really 
abandoned her intention of pursuing her tour as far as Ba- 
den, and that in a few days you return to England?” 

“Lady Stratherne has quite given up her chimerical 
project,” said I, wishing to evade a reply as to the exact 
period of our departure. “It would have been imposs\- 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


209 


sible, indeed, for her to visit Paris according to her an* 
nopcement; for a solemn promise made to my father on 
quitting England, limits the period of our absence. I 
have long been engaged to pass the remainder of the sum- 
mer at the country-seat of my aunt. Lady Hereward.” 

“How unfortunate!” ejaculated Lord Clendennis. 

“ I have no inclination to think so. Accustomed to the 
tranquillity of a country life, I have nothing so much at 
heart as to escape the restless round of dissipation in 
which I have been involved for the last six months.” 

Nothing! Not even the peace of mind of the unhap- 
py Lady Stratherne?” 

“ I do not see how my visit to Lady Hereward is like- 
ly to influence her happiness. You must have observed 
that when we were in London together, my presence or 
absence, my advice or warning, were equally unavailing 
against mischievous temptations.” 

“Most true!” exclaimed Lord Clendennis, with a 
mournful air; “and even here, as her inmate — as a sa- 
cred tie upon the discretion of her conduct-^how little 
have you been able to counteract the evil!” 

“Nay!” cried I, “slight as my influence may be with 
Isabella, do not undervalue its extent. Do not deny me 
the satisfaction of believing that during our visit to the 
continent, my remonstrances have at least availed to weaa 
her from one fatal propensity.” 

“ How!” exclaimed Lord Clendennis, starting at this 
declaration. “Are you, then, really so blind, so credu- 
lous, so deceived, as to imagine that Impossible!” 

he cried, interrupting himself. “But I perceive and re- 
spect your motive. I see you are willing to screen the 
faults — the vices — of your friend. It is, however, too latej 
the whole secret of this disgraceful affair is in my hands. 
Yes, Lady Sophia; know that I am in Lady Stratherne’s 
confidence as fully as yourself.” 

“Afore fully, if you have been informed of any recur- 
rence to play since we quitted London. And yet I can- 
not believe it even on your asseveration ! Isabella has 
never visited the Redoute without me; I have been scarce- 
ly separated an hour from her side during our sojourn 
here. She has had no opportunity, even had she inclina- 
nation, to renew her fatal folly,” 

I was leaning on the arm of Lord Clendennis, and fan- 
cied I could perceive that mine was pressed more closely 
18 * 


210 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


to his side when I uttered this vindication of his favourite. 
He seemed trying to gain a view of my countenance, to 
see if it confirmed my assertion. Some moments elapsed 
before he spoke again; and it was in a broken voice that 
he at length exclaimed, “No! no! I was wrong, I was un- 
pardonable, to imagine for a single instant that yoxi could 
sanction scenes of such a nature. I was wrong to believe 
you capable — I — 1 — Oh ! from what a weight of trouble 
have you relieved my mind !’’ 

“1 scarcely know in what manner,” said I, secretly 
rejoiced that any circumstance connected with myself had 
power to agitate him thus. “Believe me, I had no inten- 
tion of ” 

“It is unnecessary, madam,” interrupted my compa- 
nion, “to remind me of the unimportance my feelings as- 
sume in your estimation. I am as fully aware as you can 
desire of your inditFerence to all I sutFer, — all I appre- 
hend. And yet — (for though perforce resigned to the 
misery of knowing the treasure of your atFections be- 
stowed on another, I cannot so readily submit to the mor- 
tification of seeing your fair fame injured by unguarded 
association with the profligate and deceitful,) yet — yet — 
would I presume to forewarn Lady Sophia Meredyth of 
the dangers which beset her path; and which even a hope- 
less, a rejected lover, cannot regard without consterna- 
tion.” 

Involuntarily I withdrew my arm from his. I was ap- 
prehensive lest the trepidation of my frame should betray 
the deep emotion excited in my bosom by every word that 
fell from his lips. 

“I see how it is!” he exclaimed, attributing this move- 
ment to resentment, “the affianced wife of Count Isen- 
bourg will not vouchsafe even the common courtesies of 
society to one who has presumed to address her in the lan- 
guage of tenderness. She will not believe — slie will not deign 
to believe — tliat the attachment she has refused to sanction 
is capable of suggesting other than interested views.” 

Each succeeding word of his communication augmented 
my amazement; and I now felt the necessity of summon- 
ing courage to meet the explanation of all these mysteries. 
“Suffer me at least to undeceive you respecting one part 
of your statement,” I replied. “ However, or by whom- 
soever, you may have been led into error, I have a right 
to declare, that, so far from being betrothed to Count 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


211 


Isenbourg, so far from feeling inclined to favour his ad- 
dresses, 1 have seen him for the last time. He has al- 
ready quitted Spa; and nothing can be more improbable 
than that we should ever meet again.” 

“Sophia 1” faltered Lord Clendennis in a concentrated 
voice. 

“May I now inquire,” I persisted, “by whom you 
were induced to form so groundless an opinion?” 

“By your friend, — your bosom friend! Lady Stra- 
therne herself explained to me in the clearest and most 
decided terms the hopelessness of my suit, and your in- 
clination in Isenbourg’s favour.” 

“On any assurance but your own,” said I, “ I should 
at once discredit and deny this assertion. I cannot think 
you would deceive me. But amid all the horror — the 
amazement — that Isabella’s double-dealing excites in my 
mind, I own myself at a loss to guess the motives of her 
treachery. You will believe me, I am persuaded, when 
I give you my word of honour that I now learn for the 
first time the flattering nature of your sentiments towards 
me, and that ” 

“ Sophia, Sophia !” interrupted Clendennis, seizing my 
hand, and forcibly replacing within his own the arm I had 
previously withdrawn. “Proceed not till you have ex- 
plained yourself on that one point. You have alluded 
kindly to my presumptuous pretensions; suffer me to be- 
lieve that your words were not dictated by mere courtesy. 
Tell me, — satisfy me, — that for whatever purpose you may 
have been left ignorant of my proposals, you do not whol- 
ly reject them; — that Lady Stratherne has deceived me, 
— ^hat — Sophia, you smile— you permit me to detain this 
precious hand ! — I am answered; oh! how enchantingly an- 
swered. — Sophia, you will one day be mine; you will one 
day render me the" happiest, the most envied of mortals.” 

I scarcely know which of the two was the more deeply 
gratified by this wholly unexpected elucidation of our pro- 
longed misunderstanding; and so completely were we en- 
grossed with our own prospects of happiness, by consulta- 
tions respecting the measures to be taken with my father, 
and the views Lord Chester was likely to entertain of our 
attachment, that it was some time before we recurred to 
Isabella’s unexplained conduct. I could by no means 
understand in what way my marriage with Isenbourg, 
even had it been secured by her concealment of Clen- 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


212 

clennis’s intentions, was likely to forward her interests. 
Treacherous as she was, I was still inclined to believe 
she loved me; and mv union with a Rhenish noble must 
have necessarily parted us for the remainder of our lives. 
Half sportively, I insinuated to my companion a suspicion 
that jealousy of his regard had instigated her proceedings. 

“ You cannot be so blind as to believe that I was ever 
an object of partiality to your friend?” inquired Clenden- 
nis. “’You surely must perceive how differently her af- 
fections are engrossed?” 

My thoughts glanced to Prince Ernest. Though I would 
not give utterance to so humiliating a suspicion, I own it 
struck me that an attachment between them had, perhaps, 
prompted Isabella’s selfish project of fixing my destinies 
in a country which might hereafter become her own. 

“It cannot be doubted,” resumed Lord Clendennis, 
profiling by my disinclination to reply, “ that your friend 
is truly and passionately attached to her husband. Never, 
indeed, was union plighted under happier auspices than 
theirs! But very early in their marriage Lady Stra- 
therne’s fatal propensity became apparent. It was for- 
given: — what will not the enthusiasm of love forgive? 
The error was repeated — aggravated ; — again forgiven ! 
After reiterated promises of amendment, — after the most 
solemn engagements to renounce the gaming-table, — the 
extent of her losses once more revealed her disgrace, and 
the infraction of her word. Even on that occasion. Lord 
Stratherne did not refuse to free her from her humiliating 
embarrassments. But she was amply punished; for he 
withdrew his respect from the mother of his children, his 
tenderness from the wife of his bosom.” 

I shuddered ! Erring as she was, I could not but sym- 
♦pathize with her, under such a sentence of retribution. 

“ Connected v/ith Stratherne by terms of the most fa- 
miliar friendship,” continued Clendennis, “I became a 
witness to many domestic scenes, the details of which 
have been hitherto reserved for my secret sorrow and sym- 
pathy. To yoUy dearest Sophia ! I am henceforward pri- 
vileged to divulge every thought of my mind; — from you^ 
Heaven be thanked ! 1 have no farther concealments.” 

“ And you imagine she really loves the husband whose 
happiness and comforts she would sacrifice to the selfish 
indulgence of this detestable pursuit?” 

“ I do 1 — I am persuaded that Stratherne possesses her 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


213 


whole affection: — nay, that by a judicious mode of ma- 
nagement, he might have weaned her from her fatal in- 
fatuation. It was his duty to break through all other en- 
gagements- — to renounce all other responsibilities; — and, 
by restricting Lady Stratherne to a mode of life tending 
to the development of her better qualities, restore her to 
him and to herself.” 

“Lord Stratherne’s public duties,” I began. 

“My friend is a high-minded man — of a noble and ge- 
nerous character,” interrupted Clendennis; “but he is 
proud of his intellectual endowments: — Ambitious — ac- 
tive, aspiring, — and unwilling to tame down his views to 
the mediocrity ot a country life, he has suffered his wife 
to pursue, unchecked, her course of vice and folly in those 
congenial circles where the seeds of error were originally 
sown. If not wholly^ he is much to blame.” 

“We may pardon an error so heavily expiated.” 

“Heavily, indeed! Envied and courted as they are, 
Stratherne and his wife are overwhelmed with remorse 
and affliction. I can figure to myself no position more 
terrible than that of a man unable to estrange his affec- 
tions from a woman who has proved herself undeserving 
of them.” 

“ I cannot give my faith to the existence of affection 
under such circumstances. With me, it is necessary to 
respect the object of my attachment.” 

“Long may you preserve that feeling! Long, very 
long may it be, before I give you cause to examine into 
your own l>eart in such an alternative.” 

“ But at present you have afforded me no clew to the la- 
byrinth in which I find myself involved?” said I, shrink- 
ing under the ardour of his glances. 

“Would that I could clear up the mystery without in- 
volving your friend in the utter darkness of the clouds her 
treachery has raised! It is necessary, however, dearest 
Sophia, that you should be fully undeceived; and grievous 
as it is to alienate from poor Lady Stratherne the regard 
of the only woman whose friendship she values, I must 
have no reserve with my betrothed wife!” 

“You alarm me by this solemn preamble.” 

“Nay, I have little to imply and nothing to relate be- 
yond what you already guess. I have only to accuse her 
of a heavy pecuniary obligation to myself; granted on my 
part, in order to screen her from such indignation on th^ 


^14 HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 

part of her husband, as I feared must produce a definitive 
separation between them; and solicited on hers, with a 
promise of the most sacred nature never again to approach 
the gaming-table; — a promise broken almost as soon as 
ratified. It is this obligation which has rankled in her 
heart. She dreaded that you should learn, as you are 
now learning, in the confidence of mutual explanations, 
the worthlessness of her word of honour, the degraded 
position of your friend, ” 

“I see it all, I see it clearly!” I exclaimed. “I, too, 
and on similar temptations, have assisted to extricate her 
from embarrassment. But is there any comparison be- 
tween the flagrancy of her addiction to play, and that of 
practising upon us with mutual deceptions? Never can 
I forget or forgive the uneasy hours you have been — we 
have both been — condemned to pass! 'Thank Heaven, 
the period of quitting her has arrived; for it will be no 
easy task to repress my indignation in Isabella’s presence, 
when I remember the. false hopes her duplicity has in- 
duced Monsieur d’Isenbourg to cherish, and the insults 
offered to yourself.” 

“Her second error is the result of the first. There 
never was a person beset by the pressing difficulties arising 
from .the emergencies of deep play, who would not extri- 
cate himself at the sacrifice of every good principle, every 
honourable feeling. Lady^Stratherne was once a woman 
of integrity, a woman of an unsullied mind. See to what 
straits she has reduced herself by ceding to the influence 
of this one besetting sin.” 

It was novv agreed between us that Isabella having for- 
feited all claim to our confidence, — and, lest her interfe- 
rence should again produce dissension or misunderstand- 
ing, — our engagement should be kept scrupulously secret 
till sanctioned by the consent of my father. Her intend- 
ed departure, mean while, was of necessity made known 
to my accepted lover, my future husband, who promised 
to loiter at Spa some days after our departure, then pro- 
ceed to England, and tender to Lord Chester those for- 
mal proposals, which could not but prove acceptable. 
Our marriage would probably be solemnized in the course 
of the autumn. 

“ I own,” said I, as we retraced our steps towards the 
Castle, slowly ascending those mazy walks which w'e had 
threaded unconsciously in the deep interest of our conver-^ 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


215 


sation; “ I own I wish this journey were accomplished. 
I long to be at home; I dread to be alone with Isabella; 
and above all I fear the interference and insolence of that 
odious Rittersfield.” 

“Then why not suffer me to follow you and become 
your protector, in case of his joining you on the road? 
Do you apprehend that Lady Stratherne wishes him to- 
bear her company?” 

“ On the contrary, I suspect that this precipitate depar- 
ture arises solely from anxiety to avoid his assiduities.” 

“ His assiduities!” 

“ What else can she have to fear from him? Her tre- 
. pidation at the mere sound of his voice convinces me that 
she regards him with horror.” 

“ He may, perhaps, be a less forbearing creditor than 
Isenbourg, or myself, or her friend Lady Sophia Mere- 
dyth. Kitterslield is capable of abusing his power, and 
presuming upon his advantage as the confidant of her 
shameful secrets.” 

“ No, no! It is now some years since they met at Pa-w 
ris; and I do not believe she has staked five guineas sinco 
her arrival at Spa.” 

“ Sophia?” 

“I admit that it is yet premature to pronounce upon 
her reformation; yet even under all the indignation of my 
recent discoveries, I must acknowledge my hope that Isa- 
bella has weaned herself from her passion for play.” 

“Can it be possible that you have been so completely 
deceived! Can it be possible you are still ignorant that 
during the fast five weeks Lady Strlitherne has been losing 
hundreds, — thousands!” 

“Nay!” I exclaimed, laughing at his earnestness. 
“This exaggeration confutes itself. I have, indeed, seen 
her bet, — have carefully watched her proceedings; and 
venture to assure you that your imputations are unjust.” 

“ You relieve my mind from its only remaining sha- 
dow of uneasiness,” cried Lord Clendennis; by ex- 

onerating your friend, that unfortunately is impossible; 
but by proving to me that you were not permitted to share 
those orgies, of which Lady Stratherne was the presiding 
deity, and Rittersfield, Montfaucon, Luxembourg, Lord 
.Frederick, Sir Charles, and Isenbourg, the eager votaries.” 

“ Orgies 

“ Yes, Sophia! Every night when you suppose Lady 
Stratherne retired like yourself to rest, every night after 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS* 


216 

your return from the Redoute, a private bank is held at 
the hotel under her auspices. My notorious aversion 
from such pursuits, secures me even from an invitation to 
join the party. But I had no reason to believe you ex- 
cluded from the secret; and her repeated assertion of your 
attachment to Count Isenbourg, has redoubled my disgust 
against proceedings which, to my jealous eyes, seemed to 
secure your meeting under circumstances so degrading to 
yourself.” 

“To what vile, — what injurious suspicions has Isa- 
bella exposed me!” I exclaimed, almost weeping with 
vexation. But while Clendennis, grieved to have dis- 
tressed me, took my hand in his, and was expostulating 
in the tenderest manner with my tears, we were startled 
by the laughter of Madame de Montfaucon. The twilight, 
which had be»;un to darken the plantations, scarcely ena- 
bled us to discover her, seated beside Count d’Oultremont 
on the fallen trunk of a tree which lay beside the path. 

“ Garde a vous/’^ she cried, in the shrill tone of a sen- 
tinel on duty. 

“ What have I to apprehend?” said I, stopping short, 
and compelled to make some answer. 

“You, ma princesseP Nothing,*it is to be hoped. You, 
we trust, are equally sans pent et sans reproche. It was 
to my lord I ventured to address a word of warning, lest 
the spirit of Monsieur d’ Isenbourg should make its way 
from the bottom of the Rhine (where we are to suppose 
his body is now lying) to cry ‘ Beware!’ and fright us 
from our propriety.” 

“ Have any bad tidings reached you of the Count?” 
demanded poor d’Oultreinont with his usual air of honest 
sympathy. 

“You must inquire of Miladi Stratherne,” said the 
Princess, with a sneer. “She has been wandering up 
and down this hour past, beating the bushes for Lady 
Sophia; and unless she had some very interesting intelli- 
gence to communicate, why be so much alarmed by the 
circumstance of a young lady and a young gentleman' 
losing themselves in a wood?” 

We were fortunately spared her farther insinuations. 
A messenger now appeared, announcing that the fire- 
works were about to begin. With what altered feeliivrs 
did I return to the party ! — How very difl'erently had*I 
already learned to regard the Prince of Bentheim’s f6te, 
and the ruins of the Castle of Franchimont! 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


217 


CHAPTER VI. 

Now the distempered mind 
Has lost that concord of harmonious powers 
Which forms the soul of happiness. Abroad, 

Convulsive anger storms at large ; or pale 

And silent, settles into fell revenge. ‘ ' 

Then dark disgust, and hatred, ending with 

Coward deceit and ruffian violence. Thomson. 

It was after a. tedious day’s journey that Lady Stra- 
therne and myself alighted, on the following evening, in 
the court-yard of the Hotel d’Harscamp at Namur. Having 
quitted Spa before daybreak, the friends with whom we 
parted the preceding night at Franchimont remained ig- 
norant of our departure till many hours’ after we were on 
our road to Liegej and the cloud that overhung the spirits 
of Isabella at the moment of setting off having gradually 
disappeared as we gained ground on our journey, I was 
soon convinced that Clendennis’s opinion was correct, and 
that her inducement for this mysterious mode of departure 
arose solely from the nature of her obligations towards 
Prince Ernest of Rittersfield. 

Till we reached Liege, indeed, nothing could be more 
evident than the perturbation of her mind. Every unu- 
sual noise on the road, every obstacle, every passenger, 
seemed to excite her alarm; — but, at length, when we 
had passed the forges of M. M. Coquerel, and attained 
unmolested the little fortress of Huy, her spirits rose to 
a pitch of hilarity extremely annoying to my own feelings. 
I was not only depressed by the circumstance of my re- 
cent parting from Lord Clendennis, but too much irri- 
tated against Lady Strdtherne by all that had recently 
transpired, to sympathize with her mirth. At one mo- 
ment she rallied me concerning Isenbourg; the next, she 
j strove to pique me into reply by repeating some of the 
I bitter pleasantries of the Princesse de Montfaucon. But 
' it would not do. The laugh died unechoed on her lips; 
and, at length, wearied by previous agitatior\, or exhausted 
by her over-exertion, she fell asleep and left me to my 
meditations. 

It was a lovely evening; — still and cairn, and freshened 
by a rising dew that brought forth a thousand delicious 
odours from the Imt gartenSf which occasionally inter- 
VoL. II. 19 


218 


HEAHTS AND DIAMONDS. 


rened between the river-side and the road, — each deco^ 
rated with the gaudy smoking pavilion so dear to the ha- 
bits of the Austrian Netherlands. The Meuse lay like a 
mirror below, with the tall shadows of the poplars on its 
shores and islands stretching undisturbed across the un- 
ruffled surface. The splash of oars, or the harsh cry of 
the Walloon bargemen, alone interrupted the tranquillity 
of the scene; and nothing could be more composing to my 
spirits than this, — the first hour of solitary meditation I 
had enjoyed since assured of the affection of the man I 
had loved so long and hopelessly! I refrained, however, 
from dwelling on the past; it was too much connected 
with the misdoings of my friend. I chose to think only 
of the future, the bright, unsullied, happy, hopeful future. 
I saw nothing before me but Joy, and peace, and love; 
and reclining in a corner of the carriage, gave myself up 
to the blessedness of grateful contentment. 

A sudden scream from my companion interrupted the 
current of my contemplations. Starting up and seizing 
my arm with a convulsive grasp, she suddenly buried her 
face in my shoulder. When her forehead touched my 
cheek, as 1 strove to evade her embrace, I perceived that 
it was covered with a death-like dew; while her bosom 
sobbed spasmodically in the violence of her agitation. 

“What is the matter, Isabella?” I whispered with 
all the calmness 1 could assume. 

“Oh! nothing — nothing! I have been dreaming; I 
thought he was come, — I fancied he was here!” 

“Who?-^Lord Stratherne?” 

“No— no— no! Prince Ernest! I am sure I heard his 
voice — How dreadful!” 

“Is there any thing very alarming in the aspect of a 
man whose society you have been seeking for so many 
weeks past?” 

“ I seek his society?” she repeated with shudderino- 
emphasis. “ I would as soon bury myself in one of those 
ardent furnaces we saw this morning pouring out their 
flames at Liege! But no matter— don’t let us talk of it 
—the spell is over!— Surely the* terrors of our dreams 
are sent as foreshowings of the anguish of a disembodied 
spirit in the day of its curse! The dayP — the eternity!’* 

She covered her forehead with her hands, and gnashed 
her teeth in bitterness;— then suddenly exclaimed, “ So- 
phy, Sophy!— you who witness all my follies, all my 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


2i9 


blasphemies, — when you hear me deride the opinions of 
the rigidly righteous, do not listen to me, child; or listen 
to me only that, like the devils, you may believe and 
tremble! — Listen to me, that you may turn from the sin- 
ful tumult of my soul to the tranquillity of yonder land- 
scape, and know how heavenly is the peace of innocence, 
how awful the agony of guilt. — Listen to me, that when 
I am gone, you may have mercy on my girls, and train 
them in a better path. — I shall not live to profit them 
either by precept or warning; but you, Sophia, you must 
surround them with harsher barriers than ever were 
raised around my path. It is,not enough to love God — 
no! it is not enough; — that feeling is spontaneous in every 
uncorrupted heart. — Teach them to/ear him; — for in that 
feeling is the beginning of wisdom. Where am I wanr 
dering! — What — what— Ha! — ha! — ha! Sophy! child! — 
Why do you tremble? — See you not that I am still dream- 
ing?” 

Fortunately we were already within sight of the fortress 
of Namur; and could discern its lofty towers overlooking 
the confluence of the Sambre and Meuse, as they stood 
defined against the gray sky of the evening twilight. It 
was late when we took possession of our apartments in 
the hotel; but as supper was not yet ready, we agreed to 
refresh ourselves by a few turns in^n arcade or covered 
corridor, into which they opened. On one side it formed 
a sort of terrace overlooking the garden; the balustrade, 
of which was ornamented with vases of flowering shrubs, 
affording a far more agreeable retreat than the dark dingy 
1 chambers, with their old-fashioned tapestry and sepul- 
chral-looking stoves. 

1 “ What a beautiful night!” I exclaimed, as we slowly 

paraded the terrace, gazing upon the sky now bright with 
I starlight,_and mild with the balminess of summer. 

“Well! after all, -^even adversity has its advantages,” 

! said Isabella, recovering her usual tone of levity, now 
that we were alone and safe. “ Care, I thank it, has 
I taught me more than one useful lesson. For instance; — 
I I never before found myself compelled to pass a night in 
, this dreary comfortless inn, without grumbling from the 
very moment I entered the court-yard; — and now, thanks 
to the joy of escaping from Spa with its thousand and one 
horrors, I am inclined to fancy the Hotel d’Harscamp 
more charming than the palace of Aladdin.” 


220 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


“ You forget that I still wait your pleasure to learn the 
motive of this sudden detestation of a place sought of your 
own free will, and ” 

“No you do no^'—Blind as you are, Sophy, blinded 
by the veil of an engrossing passion — (do not start and 
play the heroine, I have long seen through that transpa- 
rent bosom -of yours) you are not half so much in the dark 
as you pretend. You cannot but be aware that for weeks 
past I have been the prey of a fiend who has been eating 
into my soul and deriding its torments.” 

“Prince Ernest,” said I, half interrogatively. 

“Do not name him! — Let me escape a sound as well 
as a sight which has initiated me into the deepest myste- 
ries of human suffering. Sophy!” she continued, in a low 
voice^ suddenly grasping my arm; “did you but know what 
it is to me to be rid of that wretch, — did you but know 
what it is to me to be here, with the certainty he is there , — 
to feel that leagues and leagues are between us- — 

She started! — a dark figure stood beside us — a stran- 
ger, who had emerged unobserved from another cliamber 
opening into the arcade. No ! not a stranger, — that hope 
was premature; — it was indeed Priqce Ernest of Ritters- 
fieid’s sneering laugh which mingled with his ironical in- 
quiries after our health, after so precipitate a journey. 
Isabella did not shriek, — did not start, — did not utter a 
syllable. She was overwhelmed with horror and despair: 
and it was I who found courage to inquire of the intruder 
whether he had arrived shortly after ourselves. 

you?” said he, in the most insultingly obsequi- 
ous manner. “ And can you imagine^ Lady Sophia, that 
I would leave to any other man the gratification of being 
your avant-courierP Do you suppose that I,-— like the 
phlegmatic Clendennis, — would content myself with bid- 
ding the postillions be careful, and the lackeys vigilant? 
No, no, — fair ladies! — no sooner were your plans of de- 
parture devised (and, faith, they did justice to the inge- 
nuity of your sex,) than mine were formed on the self- 
same chart. I only took care to be beforehand with two 
fugitive dames who might possibly lack my protection; 
and, on quitting the Ritterfest of Pranchimont, instantly 
commenced my journey hither. 1 trust you will not with- 
hold your acknowledgments from my diligence and devo- 
tion.” 

Never shall I forget the triumphant scorn that rang in 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


221 


his voice as he spoke. It was too dark to discern his 
countenance; but I could feel the malicious exultation of 
the looks he fixed upon us; and shuddered under their 
expression. 

But my pride came to mj assistance. I determined 
not to quail so meanly before the insolent bravado of one 
capable of stooping to the intimidation of a woman. 

“I must first learn that we have occasion to be indebt- 
ed to your services,” said I, gravely. “ You are well 
aware, that had Lady Stratherne deemed the protection 
of her servants insufficient, she had countrymen of her 
own at Spa, who would neither have permitted her to de- 
part unattended, nor to become a sufferer from the insults 
of strangers.” 

“.Well expressed — still better insinuated !” cried Prince 
Ernest, with a malicious laugh. Your ladyship seems dis- 
posed to lose no time in appropriating the championship of 
Lord Clendennis, and reducing to practice the Quixotism 
of Franchiinont. But fear nothing, madam! Isenbourg is 
gone quietly home to the cobwebs of his old hall, without 
the slightest ambition to break either a lance or his lord- 
ship’s head in your behoof. The days of chivalry are over.” 

As we passed the window of our apartment, it was some 
comfort to notice that the servants were already busy in 
arranging the supper-table; — I invited Isabella to go in, 
and, apparently stricken dumb with.despair, she prepared 
to accompany me. 

“And do you not extend your courtesy to in- 

quired Prince Ernest, ironically; “tome, who have tra- 
1 veiled so far to do you honour?” 

i Isabella pressed my arm, as if to prompt the invitation 
I she was unable to utter. 

I “No,” cried I, replying aloud to the signal; “after 
what has passed, I must decline sitting down in the Prince 
of Rittersfield^s company. Invite him, if you please; but 
! I shall retire to my own room.” 

“Sophia, — Sophia!” pleaded Lady Stra^erne. “Do 
not irritate him; — you ruin me by this viol^ce.” 

“Lady Sophia Meredyth has nothing to fear from my 
intrusion, or my reprehension,” was his bitter reply. “I 
leave to the dupe Clendennis the charming but arduous 
task of taming down these little feminine virulences. My 
business, madam, is with he continued, addressing 

himself to Isabella. “ And as it is impossible to divine 

19 ^ 


222 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


at what hour such active travellers may think fit to take 
the road to-morrow, I am compelled to request a private 
audience this night, — this very night.” 

“Do not grant it, Isabella,” said I, firmly. “He can 
have no right to demand, nor any good purpose in de- 
siring it.” 

“Sophy — Sophy!” again faltered my friend, in a plead- 
ing voice. 

“As Lady Stratherne pleases!” cried Rittersfield, 
scornfully. “The privacy I sought was a concession of 
mercy. It depends on herself that our interview should 
take place here, or in presence of Lord Stratherne, or 
the whole Gourt of St. James’sj — to me the time and 
place are alike indifferent.” 

He amused himself with his snuff-box, to mark the 
souciance with which he uttered this defiance, while saun- 
tering negligently by our side. 

“You must perceive,” murmured Isabella, in a low 
voice, and pointing to our apartment, which was full of the 
servants of the hotel, “ that I cannot receive you there.” 

“Certainly not!” replied Rittersfield, throwing open 
the door of his own chamber, which was untenanted, and 
dimly lighted by two solitary candles. “ Here^ however, 
we may talk and listen undisturbed.- Ten minutes will 
suffice for the explanation of your ladyship’s intentions 
and my own.” 

“Do not , — pray do not go with him, Isabella,” I ex- 
claimed, arresting her on the threshold of the door. 

“I mustP^ she replied in ap emphatic whisper, while 
she unclasped my arm. ^ “Remain here,. Sophy, — remain 
here; I will return in a"few minutes.” . 

“No ! you shall not be with him alone,” cried I, eager- 
ly. “ You have every thing to fear from that man.” 

A hollow laugh from -Ritters field marked his contempt 
of my terrors. “Nay, sweet lady!” said he, in a tone of 
affected softness still more frightful than his rage, “ogres 
and loup-gar^x are as rare in these our times as knight- 
errants and squires of dames. Lady Stratherne grants 
me the honour of her company of her own free will, and 
for her own sole advantage; — her peril lies, in the refusal.” 

Again Isabella laid her commands upon me not to stir, 
nor interfere with her proceedings; and, pausing a single 
moment, as if for the recovery of her self-possession, she 
followed Prince Ernest into his chamber. The moment 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


223 


she entered, he carefully drew behind him the heavy cur- 
tains of Utrecht velvet, which screened the chamber with- 
in from my observation. 


CHAPTER VII. 


In the midst 

Of laughter, her compunctions are sincere. 

And she abhors the jest by which she shines ; 

Remorse begets reform. 

CowPER’s Task. 

Notwithstanding all this mystery, I did not for a 
moment delude myself by the notion that Lady Stratherne 
had any thing to apprehend from her insolent favourite', 
beyond the peremptory settlement of some pecuniary ob- 
ligation; I saw that it was insult, not injury she dreaded. 
Unwilling to pry into a secret likely to involve her in far- 
ther shame, I stole away from the wintlow to the opposite 
balustrade; and, leaning against one of its stone vases, 
indulged in a bitter flood of tears. The consciousness of 
Isabella's humiliation, of my own isolation, of Clenden- 
nis’s absence, pressed heavily on my spirits; and grievous- 
ly, indeed, did I long for the hour of my return to England. 

Five minutes, ten, a quarter of an hour elapsed,— and 
Lady Stratherne did not make her appearance. At length 
growing uneasy at her delay, I was about to enter the 
chamber, when, to my great surprise. Prince Ernest cool- 
ly stepped forth, with his hat on his head, and after utter- 
ing an ironical compliment of adieu, and an inquiry whe- 
ther I had any commands for Spa, which placeiie should 
reach before morning, advised me to go and tender my 
services to my friend. “Trust me, I shall be careful to 
tranquillize any surmises my sudden departure may have 
excited in the mind of my Lord Clendennis,” said he with 
a sneer, “by informing him that I was not even admitted 
to the honour of supping in your ladyship’s company.” 

He disappeared along the dark arcade, while I hastened 
into the room he had quitted; nor did it surprise me to 
find Isabella seated beside the table, with her face hidden 
on her arms, that lay outstretched before her. She looked 
up as I approached; and I saw that her cheeks were pale 
as marble, her lips livid, her eyes swollen. She had even 


224 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


found it necessary to maintain her courage during the 
interview, by recourse to her customary mode of excite- 
ment; for the dressing-case, to which she directed my at- 
tention two nights before, had been sent for, and was still 
on the Jable. 

“Is'^he gone?” she murmured in a scarcely audible 
whisper, as I advanced to take one of her deathlike hands. 

“Quite gone; you have nothing more to fear.*’ 

“No!” she wildly reiterated, “I have nothing more to 
fear. It is all over!” 

“Come then to your own room, my dear Isabella; lie 
down, and try to take some rest.” 

“Lie down and Jie/” frantically rejoined my friend. 
“Oh! that I had, indeed, courage to die,” she exclaimed, 
WTinging her hands. 

“Prince Ernest has quitted the house,” said I, unable 
to devise any means of subduing her agitation. “He is 
already on his road to Spa: you will see and hear of him 
no more. Think, therefore, only of Lord Stratherne, — 
of your children, — of the joy of your welcome home.” 

But to all my exhortations, she replied by gestures ex- 
pressive of despair, or groans, which seemed to spring from 
the unutterable anguish of her heart; till at length I my- 
self was compelled to suggest farther recourse to the fatal 
remedy which alone seemed capable of assuaging her suf- 
ferings. Instead of appearing at the supper table, I passed 
the remainder of the evening and the greater part of the 
night by her bed-side; already anticipating with dismay 
that, instead of proceeding on our journey, the indispo- 
sition of Lady Strathernejvould detain us at Namur for 
some days to come. No sooner did I find the torpor, 
which with /icr habitually supplied the place of sleep, be- 
gin to steal over her senses, than I gave way to the effects 
of the fatigues and anxieties I had undergone, and retired 
to rest. But, alas! my slumbers already bore witness to 
my participation in her inquietudes. I was assailed by a 
thousand horrible visions and painful perplexities. Where- 
ever I turned, Rittersfield was again beside me: not in a 
menacing attitude, but in that far more frightful mood of 
sneering irony, which had power to suspend the very cur- 
rent of my blood.. For the first time, night was arrayed 
in a thousand terrors to my soul. Now, I seemed to stum- 
ble over the dead body of Isabella; and now, it was alter- 
nately Lord Stratherne and Clendennis, whom I found 
stretched breathless at my feet. 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


225 


From these fearful visions, I was roused by the sudden 
admission of the mid-day sun into my chamber; and what 
was my amazement on perceiving that Lady Stratherne, 
equipped for our journey, had drawn aside n^ cui;tains 
with her own hand! Accustomed as I was to her rapid 
transitions of health, humour, and sentiment, I own I was 
utterly confounded to observe that she was in one of her 
happiest moods, — that all trace of her illness had disap- 
peared, — that the gay coquette was as flighty and fearless 
as ever. Of ^11 my dreams this surely was the strangest! 

“Reveillez vous, belle endormie!’* 

cried, or rather sang Isabella, gaily lending her assistance 
at my toilet. “ I cannot allow you a quarter of a minute 
longer for repose, or we shall hardly reach Brussels in 
time for the Opera. Be quick, and drink your coffee 
while Mademoiselle Clarice arranges your hair.” 

I obeyed without reply; nay! so much was I surprised 
and shocked by the unbecoming frivolity of her demean- 
our, that on re-entering the travelling-carriage I drew 
out a book, and, instead of promoting conversation with 
Lady Stratherne, left her to chew the cud of her medita- 
tions. Now and then she interrupted my studies by ob- 
servations on the speed of our journey, or the state of the 
roads; but, subdued by my air of gravity, she ventured 
on no topic-connected with our sojourn at Spa, or her in- 
terview with Rittersfield. 

A courier had preceded us to secure apartments in the 
Hotel Bellevue; and it was Isabella’s intention to visit 
the opera incog, (probably with the view of avoiding the 
prolongation of our trying tete-a-tete,) and depart at an 
early hour on the morrow for Lille and Calais, our place 
of embarkation for England. But scarcely had we alight- 
ed, when a letter from Lady J , the wife of the British 

Ambassador, was placed m her hands, stating that the 
newsof our expected arrival had reached the Archduchess, 
who was then at the palace of Lacken, the summer resi- 
dence of the court, — where our presence was especially 
commanded at a fete to be given that evening in honour of 
some Russian Grand-duke. Without pausing even to taste 
refreshments. Lady Stratherpe instantly ordered fresh 
horses to be put to the carriage, and signified the neces- 
sity of proceeding forthwith on her journey. 

“Will it be possible to evade, without disrespect, the 
invitation of Madame la Gouvernante ?” said L “Re- 


S26 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


member that on quitting Spa you promised to visit her at 
Lacken.”^ 

“She Avill not miss us in the crowd; and even Arch- 
duchesses must sometimes meet with disappointments. I 

shall leave a letter for Lady J ^ charging her with iny 

personal apologies, and an assurance that the dangerous 
illness of one of my children forbids me to waste an hour 
on my way to England. Sad. to say, my dear Sophy, we 
must confirm this Statement by travelling all night; or, 
at least, till we pass the frontier.” 

“ But to what purpose all these falsehoods — all this 
precipitancy?” 

“No matter, no matter. It is wdiolly — utterly — out 
of the question to go to Lacken.” 

“ Are you apprehensive of a second encounter with Rit- 
tersfield ?” 

u^o! — by this time he is half way back to Paris.” 

“Then, at least, take pity, on your fiitigues and my 
own. Although we do not join the Archduchess’s fete, 
pray let us enjoy a night’s rest.” 

“ I promise you to sleep at Enghien — Ath — where you 
will; only let us avoid all danger of being dragged to this 
unlucky ball.” 

“I am weary beyond description,” said I, conceiving 
no motive for her restlessness but that of caprice, “and 
should really be glad to remain here till morning.” 

“ Sophia!” cried Isabella, suddenly. rushing towards me 
with clasped and outstretched hands, “if you love me, do - 
not oppose my plans. I must — I must quit Brussels. 
The horses are waiting, — I have left a note to be delivered 
to the Ambassadress after our departure. Dearest Sophy, 
take pity on me, and let us away!” 

How could I resist this fervent appeal? — I had no choice 
but to accompany her; nor would she hear of pausing for 
the night till we reached Tournay, — when I insisted on 
the respite of a few hours. 

Yet, notwithstanding all this haste, no sooner did we 
arrive at Calais, than her anxiety to get to England seemed 
to subside. She, who had been accustomed from her 
childhood to the sea, and was in the habit of cruising half 
the summer in Lord Stratherne’s yacht, now affected the 
most absurd apprehensions concerning the state of the 
weather, in order to procrastinate our voyage; — till, at 
length, tired out by her caprices, I could no longer re- 
frain from e.xpostulation, 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


227 


“I know I am inconsistent, — vexatious,— puerile— err- 
ing,— marf/” said she, in reply, and her eyes were filled 
with tears while she spoke; “ but bear with me yet a lit- 
tle longer, Sophy; bear with me yet a while longer, love; 
and your task of endurance will bring its own reward. 
The time may come when you will learn to wonder less 
that the friend of your youth was flighty and inconsiderate 
of your comfort, than that she retained sufficient fortitude 
to brave the common accidents of life, — sufficient courage 
to look upon yonder waves without plunging headlong into 
the abyss.” 

“ Do not talk in this heinous manner,” I cried, accept- 
ing the embraces she offered, “and 1 will bear with any 
thing, — will forgive every thing. A wife and the mother of 
children is unpardonable to indulge in such despondency.” 

You will readily believe with what delight I set foot 
on English ground! Yet with double reason to rejoice in 
the termination of my visit to Isabella and the happy 
prospects of my engagement with Clendennis, I could not 
suffer my transport to become apparent during our pro- 
gress from Dover to London, for every minute — every 
mile — the distress of my companion increased. A stranger 
might have supposed her returning to some oppressive 
task, some bitter punishment, instead of to the arms of an 
honourable husband, and the endearments of the lovely 
children whose atfection would have sufficed to form the 
happiness of any other womarf. Indignant as I was, I 
could not listen “to her heavy sighs without sympathy, or 
mark the deep gloom upon her brow without consternation. 

And yet I had not courage to interrogate her touching 
the immediate motive of her despondency ! Having re- 
vealed to me without remorse so many details of past mis- 
conduct, I could not help fearing that something worse 
than all the rest remained untold: I dared not even form 
a conjecture concerning the source of .her uneasiness. I 
I felt, however, that on one point it behooved me to be can- 
did with herself, lest she should learn from others — from 
I strangers— the nature of my new engagements; and as we 

approached the metropolis, I mingled with my formal 
thanks (and necessarily they were both formal and cold) 
for her kindness during our visit to the continent, a. de- 
claration that proposals for my hand were about to be ten- 
dered by Clendennis to mv father. 

“ I know it, Sophy— I know it all,” was her mournful 


228 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


reply, and sincerely thank Heaven that my folly and 
wickedness have not originated the mischief they might 
have caused, had you been less firm, or Clendennis less 
clear-sighted. It is well that one of our party returns to 
England with a heart unbroken, a mind unseared by guilt. 
But, alas! what have 1 to offer in extenuation of the trea- 
chery of which I stand convicted in your eyes? — I did 
strive to circumvent the mutual attachment I foresaw be- 
tween you: — I did attempt to entangle you in a marriage 
with another. But you were not sufficiently frank with 
me, Sophia! Circumstanced as we were together, you 
should not have disguised from me the preference of your 
heart. It was your own want of candour which provoked 
me to prolong your uneasiness, and that of poor Count 
Isenbourg.” > ' 

“But why — tell me,. I beseech you, Isabella — why 
were you inclined to promote misunderstanding between 
Clendennis and myself?’* 

“The task of confession is too humiliating^ — spare me 
some portion of its bitterness!” 

“Nay, then, — I will inquire no farther.” 

“It is too late! — I feel that your esteem for me is ir- 
retrievable; and it will not augment your disgust to learn 
how much I ilreaded to forfeit the regard of the only man, 
the only woman, whose friendship I ever wished to con- 
ciliate. I foresaw that in the unlimited confidence of un- 
limited love, Clendennis would acquaint you with my 
dishonour in incurring a pecuniary obligation to a man un- 
connected with me by ties of blood; and that you, love — 
you, kind, good, gentle friend — would alienate any feel- 
ing of intei est lingering towards me in the mind of your 
future husband, by betraying the meanness that has al- 
lowed me to encroach on your little fortune.” 

“Isabella, Isabella,” cri^d I, interrupting her, “do 
not imagine ” 

“ Hush!” said Cady Stratherne, placing her hand on 
my lips, “ not a word more on the subject now. The 
time for explanation is not fully come. I have confes- 
sions to make, which must precede those s(f heavily due 
to yourself.. The happiness of my future life, the wel- 
fare of my immortal soul, hangs, Sophia, on a thread 
frailer than the slightest web floating on yonder summer 
atmosphere. And yet, I dare to hope! the veriest sin- 
ner, the unhappiest wretch that lives, is invited to hope 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


229 


Oh! let me but pass in safety this one ordeal,— let me 
but obtain forgiveness where 1 have sinned the deepest, — 
and my repentance, my reformation, the whole tenour of 
my future life, shall prove that the mercies of Heaven have 
not been bestowed in vain ! To my husband — to Stra- 

therne — to my dear husband ” her voice faltered, and 

the tears burst from ber eyes. “God be thanked!” said 
she, dashing them away with her hand. “1 was afraid 
these sources of comfort were dried up for ever. I have 
not wept one tear through all my sufferings — all my de- 
spair!” 

Perceiving how unfit she was to be left alone, I pro- 
posed that, instead of leaving me at my father’s on her 
way home, I should proceed with her till Lord Stratherne 
was in Street to receive her!” 

“No!” she replied, when the postboys took their pre- 
concerted way to Grosvenor Square. “ This is a trial I 
must meet alone — unsupported.” 

“ Farewell, Sophia!” at length murmured Isabella, im- 
printing a fervent kiss upon my forehead, as we reached 
my father’s door. “ Think of me as charitably as you 
can till we meet again; and be that moment cheered by 
unreserved confidence, and unreserved forgiveness. — Kiss 
me again, Sophy! — press me kindly by the hand! — Grant 
me some encouragement ere I proceed in my penance. 
Do not fancy you behold one of my transitory fits of peni- 
tence; or that I shall recover for the commission of farther 
follies. No, — I have plucked out the offending member 
from my bosom! Time will — but it is too late to open 
I my heart to you now. Farewell, Sophia! you shaU hear 
I from me to-morrow. Farewell!” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Forbear to judge,— for we are sinners all 
Close up the curtain ! 

SHA.K8PEASE. 

After all my anticipations of delight at returning 
home, my heart was inexpressibly saddened, in crossing 
my father’s threshold, by the mournful tone of Isabella’s 
parting adjurations. Even after I had entered the draw- 
VoL. II. 20 


230 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


ing-room, I half resolved to follow her to Street, in- 

stead of awaiting Lord Chester’s arrival to our usual late 
dinner. 

But scarcely did ten minutes elapse in that region of 
forms and ceremonies, before my accustomed deference 
to my father returned in its fullest force; and I was far 
too much in awe of his displeasure to venture on a step 
which he might construe into want of respect towards 
himself. And when at length h6 made his appearance, 
his mode of welcome was so much warmer than I had ex^ 
pected, and his demeanour so much kinder and more fa- 
miliar than usual, that I soon lost sight of the Stratherne 
family in the interest of making known to him the posi- 
tion of my own affairs, and claiming his sanction to my 
union with Lord Clendennis. I had not till then ima' 
gined him capable of the tenderness with which he gave 
me his benediction, and assured me of his perfect satis- 
faction in the match. 

We sat down to dinper tete-a-tete; and never did I see 
him so gracious — so conversible. Lord Chester already 
ceased to treat me as a child; and seemed to have decided 
that my engagement to become a wife sufficed to convert 
me into a woman. Assuming a tone of friendly confi- 
dence, he threw oft' all the usual reserve of his demea- 
nour; and after having dismissed the servants .at dessert, 
began to talk to me as volubly and explicitly as though T 
were the head of his party in the cabinet. I was appre- 
hensive that liis new vein of communicativeness might 
lead him to the chapter of Lady Stratherne, and my fears 
were not premature. 

“ I am glad to see you sitting there opposite to me 
again, my dear Sophia,” said Lord Chester, as soon as 
we were alone; “ not only because the place looked cheer- 
less without you, but because ray sister Hereward has 
been harassing me with histories about Lady Stratherne, 
and entreaties that I would write to hasten your return to 
England.” 

“Indeed! Has my aunt any particular motive for 
wishing to see me?” 

“ She has got some fancy into her head, that your 
friend is scarcely old or wise enough to be trusted with 
the care of you; and even protests that you have made 
away with a large sum of money since you have acted un- 
der her ladyship’s guidance.” 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


231 


“And yet Lady Hereward was a strenuous promoter 
of my intimacy with Isabella,” said I, evading a direct 
answer, but covered with blushes, which amounted almost 
to confession. 

“You need not be so apprehensive of betraying the se- 
crets of your friend,” observed Lord Chester; “ I am 
acquainted with the whole affair; and congratulate you on 
having conducted it with a degree of spirit and generosity 
worthy the name of Meredyth.” 

“ My dear father!” 

“This very morning Lord Stratherne requested per- 
mission to pay over to my bankers the sum of fifteen hun- 
dred pounds, advanced by my daughter to her thoughtless 
schoolfellow; with a farther entreaty that an act of such 
pernicious kindness might never be renewed on your part.” 

“You delight me beyond measure! The obligation could 
only have been made known to him by Isabella herself. 
Her letters have probably anticipated the confession she an- 
nounced to me this morning: and since her husband thus 
generously consents to defray her debts of honour, I fore- 
see that all misunderstanding between them will end, and 
their domestic happiness be at length restored.” 

“ Not, however, without an immense sacrifice on his 
part. I have reason to know that Stratherne has been 
obliged to sell a favourite estate in order to clear off these 
unsatisfactory incumbrances. Our conversation of this 
morning produced an expansion of feeling such as I little 
expected from a man of his reserved disposition. He 
owned that Lady Stratherne had written soon after her 
arrival at Spa, to make known -the difficulties by which 
she was beset previously to her departure. ‘ I have al- 
ready encroached on my children’s birthright,’ said he. 

^ On this occasion— but for the last time— I will again ex- 
tend my hand to save her from disgrace. My wife assures 
me that to the advice and example of Lady Sophia Mere- 
dyth she owes her determination to renounce her past er- 
rors* return to the bosom of her family, and assume the 
duties of a wife and a mother. Judge whether my obli- 
gations to your daughter are capable of repayment by the 
paltry sum I have placed in your hands !’ — In short, con- 
tinued Lord Chester, “ poor Stratherne was so deeply af- 
fected in speaking of you, and anticipating the change of 
his domestic position, that I doubt whether Clendennis 
himself would have expressed himself more warmly. 

20 * 


232 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


“All— all my wishes are fulfilled !” cried I, exultingly. 
“ Isabella’s difficulties are at an end, and her follies on 
the eve of reformation; while you, my dear father, honour 
with your approval the choice of my heart. All my wishes 
are fulfilled.” 

“Have you no clause of reservation for the arrival ot 
my future son-in-law?” 

“Lord Clendennis will be in England by the beginning 
of next week.” 

“I almost wish, Sophy, he had followed you more close- 
ly. It would have gratified me, had the explanation be- 
tween us taken place, so as to enable me to announce the 
event to-morrow night at Windsor.” 

“At Windsor?” 

“Yes, my dear Sophia! this is the eleventh of August.” 

My looks betrayed a sad deficiency of apprehension. 

“How! have you been absent long enough from Lon- 
don to forget that to-morrow is the Prince’s birth-day?” 

“It is some time since I have seen an English news- 
paper.” 

“ A magnificent gala is in preparation at the Castle for 
the occasion; to which you would have probably been ho- 
noured with an invitation, had not the Duchess of Ancas- 
ter been unapprized of your return.” 

“I am happy to be spared an additional exertion just 
now,” said I, listlessly. 

“Lady Stratherne, as the wife of a cabinet minister, 
cannot however excuse herself from paying her respects.’’ 

“Had not Isabella’s mind been too much engrossed 
with the interest of her own affairs to remember this un- 
lucky birth-day, 1 am persuaded,” said I, “that she 
would have loitered four and twenty hours at Calais to 
evade the engagement.” 

My father was shocked ! He was too diligent a courtier 
to conceive how such a duty could be regarded otherwise 
than as a matter of jubilee.’ Although but lately returned 
from attending their Majesties on an expedition to Chel- 
tenham, he was eager to be at his post again, and dilated 
in rapturous terms on the projected splendours of the fete. 
While I sat listening to his domestic news,— his details 
of the great Gainsborough’s dangerous illness, —and of a 
singular robbery of medals, which had taken place at De- 
vonshire House during our absence, — we were startled 
by the sudden entrance of my own maid, informing me 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


233 


that Mademoiselle Clarice, Lady Stratherne’s attendant, 
insisted upon seeing me. This abrupt measure was very 
little consonant with the dignified etiquettes of Lord Ches- 
ter’s establishinentj and I was striving to propitiate his 
displeasure by a postponement of the interview, when the 
poor girl herself burst into the room, and with wild ges- 
tures and incoherent prayers, implored me to accompany 
her without one moment’s delay. On hearing that Lady 
Stratherne herself had sent to request my presence, my 
father otFered to ring for the carriage. 

“No, no, no!” cried Clarice, almost breathless W'ith 
agitation; “my lady must step into the hackney coach in 
which I came, or she will be too late.” 

Struck by the consternation of her air, I followed her 
implicitly without hat or cloak; leaving my father to rave 
over the indiscretion of such a proceeding. Five minutes 

sufficed to convey me from Grosvenor Square to 

Street, but not to clear up the mystery. The hysterical 
sobs of poor Clarice rendered every thing unintelligible, 
except that her lady was very ill — dying! — and that she 
insisted on seeing me. The word “ dying ” did not, how- 
ever, convey to my mind the impression anticipated by 
my intbrmant. I had already heard her pronounce Isa- 
bella dying, in more than one crisis of her domestic irri- 
tations. 

On reaching the house, I inquired of the steward who 
met me at the foot of the stairs, whether any medical man 
had been sent for; but the old man seemed unaware that 
any thing was amiss in the establishment: and, following 
the eager invitations of Clarice, I flew up stairs to Isabel- 
la’s apartments. All was still in her dressing-room, — all 
still in her bed-room; — but by the light of the candles 
burning dimly on the table, the Frenchwoman pointed 
with a trembling hand to the bed, and whispered that her 
mistress was there. 

She was indeed there. On approaching nearer, I per- 
ceived that she was lying down in her clothes; and stoop- 
ino- to kiss her cheek, inquired what was the matter. 

am dying, Sophia,” she faltered in an inarticulate 
voice, as I bent over her; “I am dying!” 

no!” said I; “you are only faint and exhaust- 
ed. Clarice — some eau de luce!^'^ 

“Do not deceive yourself,— do not waste one precious 
moment,” murmured my unfortunate friend; “I am 


234 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


dying, dearest Sophy — dying by my own hand — dying 
of poison. — It is too late !” murmured Isabella, sinking 
back a« a shriek burst from my lips. 

“Where, where is Lord Stratherne!” cried I, in dis- 
may: “ fly to him, Claricej bid him come hither instantly.” 

“ I have been twice to my lord, and he refuses to come.” 

“Tell him your lady is ill — in danger I” 

“He will not believe me,” sobbed the girl: “there has 
been some dispute between my lord and my lady, and he 
fancies this illness a pretence.” 

Rushing down to the drawing-room, I found Lord Stra- 
therne sitting quietly at his writing-table^ and having in a 
few words explained my dreadful errand — my tears and 
horror-struck looks bore witness to my veracity. A few 
moments carried him to the bed-side of his wife. 

“Isabella! — Isabella!” cried he, holding the light to- 
wards her livid face; “ what means all this?” 

“That you are about to be delivered from the curse I 
have brought upon you; that the wife who has caused you 
so much'uneasiness, — so much shame, — has consummated 
an act which ” She could not conclude the fatal an- 

nouncement. 

Lord Stratherne now rang the bell with such violence 
that half a dozen servants came rushing up. “Fetch ad- 
vice,” cried he; “fetch the nearest medical man!” 

“It is too late,” said the dying woman in a hollow 
voice. “Not all the physicians in London could save me 
now; — the opium I have taken would destroy a strong 
man. Stratherne! — it is too late; — my doom is sealed.” 

“Isabella!” cried her husband, frantically; “what 
have I done to deserve this?” 

“Fowr^—nothing,— nothing!— my own errors demand- 
ed retribution.” 

“ Did I not forgive them? — have I not pardoned all — 
all! Are you not aware that the separation I announced 
as the consequence of any farther recurrence to the gaming- 
table, could only be provoked by your own deliberate 
acts ?” 

Isabella groaned heavily. 

“I expressed my displeasure, it is true, that after all 
my concessions you should refuse to accompany me to 
this Windsor fete. But was the petulance arising from 

so trifling a dispute capable of exciting you to No! 

—no!— no!” he cried, suddenly clasping his hands to- 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


235 

gether; “I will not believe itj — I cannot believe itj — it 
is impossible ! — you have been trying to terrify me into 

compliance; — dearest Isabella! — you oh, God! — 

oh, God ! — that look !” — he faltered, staggering from the 
bed, as she turned her dying face towards him. 

“Be not misled by false hopes,” murmured she. “*I 
am dying; — the cold stupor of death is stealing over me. 
Comfort me, Stratherne, while my soul is still suscepti- 
ble of comfort. Tell me that I am pardoned; — tell me 
again, — draw nearer and whisper to me, my dearest, my 
most beloved husband, — whisper to me that by ?/ow, at 
least, I am forgiven.” 

“ Isabella — Isabella!” — was all poor Stratherne could 
utter; while I supported on my bosom the heavy head of 
my unhappy friend. 

“ Had I presumed to live, that word could never have 
gladdened my ears: for I had signed my own sentence, — 
I had condemned myself to eternal alienation from you. 
Yes! Henry; — in defiance of my vows, — my promises, — 
in defiance of your generous, forbearance, — I have played 
again; — played since you received the letter containing 
the confession of my folly — the assurance of my penitence; 
— played till I was indebted in the sum of many thou- 
sands, — played till I learned to crouch before a ruffian. 
He had no pity on me! No; it was not money he sought 
of the wretch he had made his victim.’? 

“Great Heaven, — what new horrors await me!” eja- 
culated Stratherne, concealing his face in the draperies 
of the bed. 

“But though my inconsiderate folly was the means of 
exposing me to a declaration of his insulting passion, I 
thank God who gave me courage to defy his threats — to 
defeat his projects.” 

“ Prince Ernest, — that ruffian!” involuntarily escaped 
my lips. 

“That ruffian!” reiterated the sufferer. “Ah, So- 
phia! — little did I imagine when poor Clendennis first 
warned me against my intimacy with Rittersfield, with 
what designs the plotter was ministering to my fatal pro- 
pensity; and little did you imagine the influence that fa- 
tal interview at Namur was to hold over the destinies of 
your friend. Infuriated by the scorn with which I re- 
pelled his vile addresses, he demanded the instant pay- 
ment of my debt; — threatened to precede me to London, 


236 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


reveal all to my husband, — and after compelling the im- 
mediate satisfaction of his claim, provoke him with a mor- 
tal defiance. I had but one way of evading all these hor- 
rors.” 

Lord Stratherne seized her passive hand, and fixed his 
glaring eyes upon her face. 

“Taunted into madness, I surrendered my diamonds 
as a pledge of payment. Yes! Stratherne; surrendered 
your family inheritance — the sacred gift deposited in my 
hands'on our marriage day.” 

“ Dross, — mere dross 1 — think not of it; speak of it no 
more,” cried her husband, relieved from his worst appre- 
hensions. 

“ I knew' that the extent of my losses at Spa, in coming 
to your knowledge, must seal my destiny,” faltered Isa- 
bella; “ but I had still hopes of recovering the casket. I 
had still hopes that my father — my own family, — com- 
passionating the terrible destiny by which I was menaced, 
would enable me to liquidate the debt and regain the 
jewels. Alas, alas !” 

“ Why not confide in me, why not reveal the whole to 
your friend?” — said 1. 

“ I had not a moment for deliberation; and the remorse, 
arising from many a year of error harassed my mind to 
madness. Stratherne would not hear of my. absenting 
myself from the royal fete; to appear there without those 
miserable diamonds vypuld have provoked inquiries and a 
general elucidation. — No! I have done rightly!” she ex- 
claimed, rallying her strength and speaking in a-frantic 
tone. , “I could not have borne to hear your voice pro- 
nounce^ my doom. Henry! thank me, thank me, for 
sparing you the crime of murder; thank me for sparing 
you the sin of destroying your miserable, your guilty 
wife!” 

Lord Stratherne could not speak, but raising her from 
the pillow clasped her fervently in his arms. 

“Do not make me repent the deed!” faltered Isabella, 
laying his hand upon her sinking heart; “do not — do not 
make me cling anew to ^ rs past I have made 



it a burden to me. 


could be now re- 


trieved.” ** 

At this moment two surgeons from the neighbourhood 
were ushered into the room; but after listening to her ac- 
knowledgments, and surveying the awful symptoms al- 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


237 


ready apparent, they did not hesitate to acknowledge the 
insufficiency of their art. Antidotes were administered 
indeed; but they avowed their opinion that a fatal result 
was now irremediable. 

It appeared, however,- that had Lord Stratherne attend- 
ed the first summons despatched to him by his wife, there 
might have been time to save her; and at this su^estion 
his reason almost forsook him. His self-upbraidings were 
terrible to hear. 

“ Hush, dearest Henry, hushl” cried the dying crimi- 
nal. “ Disturb not my last moments. Be gentle with 
me as you have ever been;— -preserve your fortitude as 
you have still preserved it! — Sophia, comfort him! — and 
when I am gone, plead for me; saj what you can in exte- 
nuation of my fault. Sophia! bring me iny children; let 
me at least bequeath my poor unhappy girls to the affec- 
tion of their father.” 

“No, no!” I exclaimed, struggling with my tears; “do 
not impede by fruitless agitation the operation of the re- 
medies you have taken. Do not ask to see them; — they 
are asleep. — This dreadful scene would produce an inef- 
faceable impression on their young hearts.” 

“Then fetch them hither, Clarice! Be it my last duty 
to teach them the only lesson in my power to bestow. 
My poor, poor girls!” 

Lord Stratherne was no longer capable of interference. 
He was totally unnerved and speechless; and when the 
two children, snatched in their night-clothes from their 
little pillows, were brought into the room, and placed, 
sobbing and terrified, on their mother’s bosom, he was not 
even conscious of their presence. 

“Mary, my child, — my first born, — my own blessed 
child!” faltered Isabella; “do ^ou know me?” 

The trembling babe sobbed with terror. 

“Georgiana! do not hide your face from me; look at 
me, darling, that you may never forget the dying looks of 
your mother!” 

“Mamma, mamma! do not talk so, — do not look so 
pale,— ^do not kiss me thus!” exclaimed the child. 

“I am about to leave you for ever, my poor forsaken 
children!” said Lady Stratherne; “and when I am gone, 
Mary, you must give all your love and reverence to your 
father and Lady Sophia; and some day, when you are a 
woman, they will teach you the meaning of all you see 
Vql. II. ‘ 


238 


HEARTS AND DIAMONDS. 


to-night. My children, my dear girls, turn to the Word 
of God, and obey it, that you may never fall into the er- 
rors of your miserable mother!” 

Her voice was broken by hysteric sobs; and it was a 
dreadful task to remove the clinging arms of the poor 
babes from her farewell embrace. They had so looked 
forward to their mother’s return; — and she was come at 
last, and this was the end of all! Still more dreadful 
was the duty of assuaging the sufferings of the expiring 
sinner, — of wrestling with the struggles of death. Even 
after the power of speech was denied, I saw that she re- 
tained her perfect consciousness; I saw — oh! that I had 
never seen, or could forget — the look of anguish, of de- 
spondency, of horrible, eternal despair, that glared from 
the eyes of the self-murderer, when the grasp of death 
came strong upon her heart. I saw her struggle with the 
enemy, — shrink as from the approach of something invi- 
sible to me! I saw her breathe her last sigh. I saw the 
senseless clay lie cold and stiff before me. I heard the 
frantic shriek of Stratherne, — the sobs of her attendants. 
I watched by those senseless remains, — by the plumed 
bier, — till the hearse bore her from my eyes. No, no! it 
were too much to describe the scene. It were too much 
to speak of that widowed man — of those helpless, mother- 
less children! You can no longer wonder at the sadness 
with which you saw me contemplate that fatal, fatal 
chamber. 

For forty years I was a happy and beloved wife; but 
not even the tenderness of Clendennis and our children 
could efface the grievous impression left upon my heart by 
the life of the female gamester — the death-bed of Isabella! 


baa' 


THE END. 









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